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Background: Ethnic minorities form an increasingly large proportion of Canada's population. Living in areas of greater ethnic density may help protect mental health among ethnic minorities through psychosocial pathways such as accessibility to culturally appropriate provision of mental health care, less discrimination and a greater sense of belonging. Mood and anxiety disorders are common psychiatric disorders., Aim: This study examined whether ethnic density of regions was related to mood and anxiety disorders among ethnic minorities in Canada., Method: Responses by ethnic minority individuals to the 2011-2014 administrations of the Canadian Community Health Survey ( n =  33,201) were linked to health region ethnic density data. Multilevel logistic regression was employed to model the odds of having mood and/or anxiety disorders associated with increasing region-level ethnic density and to examine whether sense of community belonging helped explain variance in such associations. Analyses were adjusted for individual-level demographic factors as well as region-level socio-economic factors., Results: Higher ethnic density related to lower odds of mood and/or anxiety disorders for Canadian-born (but not foreign-born) ethnic minorities. Sense of community belonging did not help explain such associations, but independently related to lower odds of mood and/or anxiety disorders. These findings remained after adjusting for regional population density and after excluding (rural/remote) regions of very low ethnic density., Conclusion: Ethnic density of regions in Canada may be an important protective factor against mental illness among Canadian-born ethnic minorities. It is important to better understand how, and for which specific ethno-cultural groups, ethnic density may influence mental health.

Background: Exposure to parental chronic illness is associated with adverse developmental outcomes., Objective: We examined the association between parental multiple sclerosis (MS) and parental MS-related clinical factors on developmental health., Methods: We conducted a population-based cohort study in British Columbia, Canada, using linked health databases. The outcome was childhood development at 5 years of age, expressed as vulnerability on the Early Development Instrument (EDI). Adjusted odds ratios (aORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were estimated using conditional logistic regression., Results: MS-affected parents (n = 783) were older, more likely to be English speakers, and had higher rates of mental health morbidity (39.6% vs 22.2%, p < 0.001) than unaffected parents (n = 2988). In the adjusted models, children of mothers with MS (aOR = 0.62, 95% CI = 0.44-0.87), but not children of the fathers with MS, had a lower risk of vulnerability on the social development domain of the EDI. However, mental health comorbidity (aOR = 1.62, 95% CI = 1.05-2.50) and physical comorbidity (aOR = 1.67, 95% CI = 1.05-2.64) among mothers with MS were associated with increased vulnerability on the EDI., Conclusion: Maternal MS, but not paternal MS, was associated with lower rates of developmental vulnerability on the social development domain. However, mental and physical comorbidity among MS-affected mothers were associated with increased developmental vulnerability in children., Competing Interests: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article., (© The Author(s), 2015.)

Background: Exposure to parental chronic illness is associated with several adverse developmental outcomes., Objectives: We examined the association between parental multiple sclerosis (MS) and childhood developmental outcomes., Methods: We conducted a population-based retrospective cohort study in Manitoba, Canada, using linked databases. The outcome was childhood development at 5 years of age, expressed as vulnerability (absent vs. present) on the Early Development Instrument (EDI). Logistic regression was used to estimate odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI)., Results: Children with an MS parent (n=153) were similar to children of unaffected parents (n=876) on all EDI domains. However, mental health morbidity was more common among MS parents compared with non-MS parents 49.5% vs. 35.3%. Among MS parents, mental health morbidity was associated with children's vulnerability on the social competence (OR, 5.73 [95% CI:1.11-29.58]) and emotional maturity (OR, 3.03 [95% CI:1.03-8.94]) domains. The duration of child's exposure to parental MS was associated with vulnerability on the physical health domain (OR, 1.49 [95%CI:1.03-2.15])., Conclusion: Parental MS was not associated with adverse early childhood developmental outcomes. However, children of parents with mental health morbidity, and those with longer duration of exposure to parental MS, were at higher risk for early childhood developmental vulnerability., (© The Author(s), 2015.)