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A growing body of literature has examined the effects of neighbourhood characteristics on child health and well-being and the mechanisms through which such effects may operate. Research investigating neighbourhood effects on children is based on the notion that individuals and families who live in a neighbourhood collectively create a social context that influences the developing child. In this paper we investigate the relationship between individual and neighbourhood socioeconomic characteristics and kindergarten children's readiness to learn in Vancouver, Canada (n = 3736), using multilevel modeling techniques and 1996 census data for Vancouver neighbourhoods (n = 68). Findings suggest that although family-level characteristics carry the most weight in shaping children's readiness to learn, neighbourhood-level factors are independently associated with early developmental outcomes, particularly physical health and well-being, language and cognitive development, and communications skills and general knowledge. The strongest neighbourhood characteristics associated with readiness to learn were median income and the percentage of single-parent families. Also important were the percentage of the population who had not moved in the previous five years and the percentage of the population whose mother tongue was non-English. The latter neighbourhood characteristic was an especially strong predictor of communication skills and general knowledge. The findings suggest that neighbourhood-based policies to improve physical health and well-being, language and cognitive development, and communications skills may also meet with some success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies the relationships between socioeconomic status, material and meaningful dimensions of housing and home, and health status in two neighborhoods in Vancouver, British Columbia. Three dimensions in relationships between housing, social inequality and health; Role of housing circumstance in the production and reproduction of social identity and social status.

Abstract: Individual-level data from the Canadian Community Health Survey was combined with area-level data from the 2001 Canada Census to explore the relationship between neighbourhood deprivation and regional inequalities in self-reported health (n=120,290). While neighbourhood deprivation was a significant predictor of fair/poor health in all geographic regions (OR=1.11; 95% CI: 1.08, 1.14), living on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts exacerbated the detrimental effects of neighbourhood deprivation on the perceived health of respondents (OR=1.21; 1.28). By failing to explore regional variations in risk, we could fail to identify areas where provincial policies may interact with neighbourhood factors to reinforce health inequalities amongst deprived communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unmet healthcare need should be rare in nations with a universally accessible publicly funded healthcare system such as Canada. This however is not the case. This study examines the extent to which predictors of such need are consistent with various paradigmatic approaches (e.g., structural-critical, social capital, social support, and lifestyle) that consider such issues. Analyses of data from a probability sample of 2536 urban residents in British Columbia specified the relationship of unmet need with socioeconomic issues such as income, gender, and housing tenure, community issues such as social networks and social support, and traditional lifestyle or behavioural risk factors. The structural-critical model concerned with socio-demographics provided the most parsimonious explanation for having an unmet healthcare need. Consistent with a structural-critical approach, gender was found to be a reliable predictor of having an unmet health need in each of the models tested. Increasing federal transfers to healthcare and providing childcare and other community supports that are of special value for women may help to reduce unmet healthcare need.

Background: The role of social and family environments in the development of mental health problems among children and youth has been widely investigated. However, the degree to which parental working conditions may impact on developmental psychopathology has not been thoroughly studied., Methods: We conducted a case-control study of several mental health outcomes of 19,833 children of sawmill workers and their association with parental work stress, parental socio-demographic characteristics, and paternal mental health., Results: Multivariate analysis conducted with four distinct age groups (children, adolescents, young adults, and adults) revealed that anxiety based and depressive disorders were associated with paternal work stress in all age groups and that work stress was more strongly associated with alcohol and drug related disorders in adulthood than it was in adolescence and young adulthood., Conclusion: This study provides support to the tenet that being exposed to paternal work stress during childhood can have long lasting effects on the mental health of individuals.

Background: Using a large cohort of western Canadian sawmill workers (n = 28,794), the association between psychosocial work conditions and attempted and completed suicide was investigated., Methods: Records of attempted and completed suicide were accessed through a provincial hospital discharge registry to identify cases that were then matched using a nested case control method. Psychosocial work conditions were estimated by expert raters using the demand-control model. Univariate and multivariate conditional logistic regression was used to estimate the association between work conditions and suicide., Results: In multivariate models, controlling for sociodemographic (marital status, ethnicity) and occupational confounders (job mobility and duration), low psychological demand was associated with increased odds for completed suicide, and low social support was associated with increased odds for attempted suicides., Conclusions: This study indicates that workers with poor psychosocial working conditions may be at increased risk of both attempted and completed suicide.

This study investigates gender differences in housing, socioeconomic status, and self-reported health status. The analysis focuses on the social and economic dimensions of housing, such as demand, control, material aspects (affordability, type of dwelling) and meaningful aspects (pride in dwelling, home as a refuge) of everyday life in the domestic environment. A random sample, cross-sectional telephone survey was administered in the city of Vancouver, Canada in June 1999 (n = 650). Survey items included measures of material and meaningful dimensions of housing, housing satisfaction, and standard measures of socioeconomic status and social support. The main outcome measure was self-reported health (excellent/very good/good vs. fair/poor). A three-stage analysis provides an overall picture of the sample characteristics for male and female respondents, detects significant relations between individual and housing characteristics and self-rated health status, and investigates male-female differences in the factors associated with fair/poor self-rated health. In multivariate analyses, a small number of socioeconomic dimensions of housing were associated with self-rated health status for women. For men, only one attribute of housing was associated with self-rated health: crowding was positively related to poor health, contradicting expectations and the findings for women. The self-reported strain of housework was unrelated to self-rated health for men, but strongly related to poor health for women. For men and women, satisfaction with social activities increased the likelihood of reporting better health. Future research should focus on the health effects of gendered differences in domestic and paid work, and on home and family roles and the interaction among gender, household crowding, and health.