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OBJECTIVE: An inner-city hospital purchased a local hotel to provide support, digital engagement, skill development groups and referrals to partner agencies. Being aware of the hotel's importance to the local community, we sought feedback on a model of care relevant to perceived gaps and needs in support for mental health. METHODS: Four online focus groups included healthcare professionals, nominated opinion leaders from local Non-Government Organisations (NGOs), consumers and carers to reflect a range of views. Focus group data were qualitatively analysed. RESULTS: Participants made useful suggestions about WHAT educational, preventative and therapeutic services were needed. They emphasised the importance of HOW people engage with the service, the balance between accessibility and security. Other themes included targeting people with limited health literacy, integration with existing services, building on site heritage and ongoing evaluation of objectives and needs. CONCLUSIONS: This pilot study demonstrated clear support for providing safe and welcoming access to services, with resources and access to services to improve their health and wellbeing built on principles of social justice and inclusion. Participants had constructive ideas of what was needed, and ongoing patient and public research is anticipated.

OBJECTIVE: An inner-city hospital purchased a local hotel to provide support, digital engagement, skill development groups and referrals to partner agencies. Being aware of the hotel's importance to the local community, we sought feedback on a model of care relevant to perceived gaps and needs in support for mental health. METHODS: Four online focus groups included healthcare professionals, nominated opinion leaders from local Non-Government Organisations (NGOs), consumers and carers to reflect a range of views. Focus group data were qualitatively analysed. RESULTS: Participants made useful suggestions about WHAT educational, preventative and therapeutic services were needed. They emphasised the importance of HOW people engage with the service, the balance between accessibility and security. Other themes included targeting people with limited health literacy, integration with existing services, building on site heritage and ongoing evaluation of objectives and needs. CONCLUSIONS: This pilot study demonstrated clear support for providing safe and welcoming access to services, with resources and access to services to improve their health and wellbeing built on principles of social justice and inclusion. Participants had constructive ideas of what was needed, and ongoing patient and public research is anticipated.

For Canadian Arctic indigenous populations, marine mammal (MM) traditional foods (TFs) represent sources of both important nutrients and hazardous environmental contaminants. Food preparation is known to impact the nutrient and environmental contaminant content of processed items, yet the impacts of preparation on indigenous Arctic MM TFs remain poorly characterized. In order to determine how the various processes involved in preparing beluga blubber TFs affect their levels of nutrients and environmental contaminants, we collected blubber samples from 2 male beluga whales, aged 24 and 37 years, captured during the 2014 summer hunting season in Tuktoyaktuk, Northwest Territories, and processed them according to local TF preparation methods. We measured the levels of select nutrients [selenium (Se), polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs)] and contaminants [organochlorine pesticides, perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs), polybrominated diphenyl ethers, polychlorinated biphenyls, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), mercury (Hg)] in raw and prepared (boiled, roasted, aged) beluga blubber TFs. The impacts of beluga blubber TF preparation methods on nutrient and environmental contaminant levels were inconsistent, as the majority of processes either did not appear to influence concentrations or affected the two belugas differently. However, roasting and ageing beluga blubber consistently impacted certain compounds: roasting blubber increased concentrations of hydrophilic substances (Se and certain PFASs) through solvent depletion and deposited PAHs from cookfire smoke. The solid-liquid phase separation involved in ageing blubber depleted hydrophilic elements (Se, Hg) and some ionogenic PFASs from the lipid-rich liquid oil phase, while PUFA levels appeared to increase, and hydrophobic persistent organic pollutants were retained. Ageing blubber adjacent to in-use smokehouses also resulted in considerable PAH deposition to processed samples. Our findings dem, Funding Agencies:Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Northern Scientific Training Program Arctic Institutes of North America Northern Contaminants Program of Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada H-07

info:eu-repo/semantics/published