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A two-year study of learning disabilities found in association with French immersion programs indicates that children encountering difficulty in primary French immersion programs have a specific learning disability characterized by a pattern suggesting a maturational lag in the temporal lobe regions of the brain. (JMF)

Salmon farms are spatially concentrated reservoirs of fish host populations that can disrupt natural salmonid host-parasite dynamics. Sea lice frequently infect farm salmon and parasitize sympatric wild juvenile salmonids, with negative impacts on survival in Europe and Pacific Canada. We examined louse parasitism of wild juvenile chum salmon (Oncorhynchus keta) and pink salmon (Oncorhynchus gorbuscha) from three salmon farming regions in British Columbia (Finlayson, Broughton Archipelago, and Georgia Strait). We compared sites of low and high exposure to farms and included an area without farms (Bella Bella) to assess baseline infection levels. Louse prevalence and abundance were lowest and most similar to natural baseline levels at low-exposure sites and highest at high-exposure sites in all farm regions. A significantly greater proportion of the lice were Lepeophtheirus salmonis at high-exposure sites. Exposure to salmon farms was the only consistently significant factor to explain the variation in prevalence data, with a secondary role played by salinity. Our results support the hypothesis that salmon farms are a major source of sea lice on juvenile wild salmon in salmon farming regions and underscore the importance of using management techniques that mitigate threats to wild stocks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The management of Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.) populations, which are spatially distributed across thousands of waterways in coastal British Columbia, Canada, presents considerable challenges to resource managers. We evaluated the efficacy of salmon management by Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) over the past 55 years in two key areas: (i) the achievement of internally generated target escapement levels and (ii) escapement monitoring. We show that less than 4% of monitored streams (n = 7 of 215), which represent a small fraction of all salmon-bearing waterways (n = 2592), have consistently met escapement targets since 1950. During this same period, the number of streams monitored by DFO has simultaneously decreased. Further, current monitoring efforts fall short of encompassing the range of salmon diversity identified within recently designated conservation units. Importantly, we found that this erosion of monitoring effort has been biased towards dropping smaller runs that failed to meet target escapements in the previous decade. We suggest that such increasingly selective monitoring is presenting a progressively more biased evaluation of population health. In addition to fostering a “shifting baseline” syndrome, we conclude that these changes to monitoring can not provide data required for precautionary harvest management under the high exploitation levels that these runs experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Predator–prey dynamics in fragmented areas may be influenced by spatial features of the landscape. Although little is known about these processes, an increasingly fragmented planet underscores the urgency to predict its consequences. Accordingly, our aim was to examine foraging behaviour of an apex mammalian predator, the wolf (Canis lupus), in an archipelago environment.Mainland and adjacent archipelago of British Columbia, Canada; a largely pristine and naturally fragmented landscape with islands of variable size and isolation.We sampled 30 mainland watersheds and 29 islands for wolf faeces in summers 2000 and 2001 and identified prey remains. We examined broad geographical patterns and detailed biogeographical variables (area and isolation metrics) as they relate to prey consumed. For island data, we used Akaike Information Criteria to guide generalized linear regression model selection to predict probability of black-tailed deer (main prey;Odocoileus hemionus) in faeces.Black-tailed deer was the most common item in occurrence per faeces (63%) and occurrence per item (53%) indices, representing about 63% of mammalian biomass. Wolves consumed more deer on islands near the mainland (65% occurrence per item) than on the mainland (39%) and outer islands (45%), where other ungulates (mainland only) and small mammals replaced deer. On islands, the probability of detecting deer was influenced primarily by island distance to mainland (not by area or inter-landmass distance), suggesting limited recolonization by deer from source populations as a causal mechanism.Although sampling was limited in time, consistent patterns among islands suggest that population dynamics in isolated fragments are less stable and can result in depletion of prey. This may have important implications in understanding predator–prey communities in isolation, debate regarding wolf–deer systems and logging in temperate rain forests, and reserve design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has significant morbidity and economic costs. This study describes the prevalence and characteristics of patients with PTSD using primary care electronic medical record (EMR) data., Methods: This retrospective cross-sectional study used EMR data from the Canadian Primary Care Sentinel Surveillance Network (CPCSSN). This study included 1,574 primary care providers located in 7 Canadian provinces. There were 689,301 patients that visited a CPCSSN provider between 1 January 2017 and 31 December 2019. We describe associations between PTSD and patient characteristics using descriptive statistics, chi-square, and multiple logistic regression models., Results: Among the 689,301 patients included, 8,817 (1.3%, 95% CI 1.2-1.3) had a diagnosis of PTSD. On multiple logistic regression analysis, patients with depression (OR 4.4, 95% CI 4.2-4.7, P < 0.001), alcohol abuse/dependence (OR 1.7, 95% CI 1.6-1.9, P < 0.001), and/or drug abuse/dependence (OR 2.6, 95% CI 2.5-2.8, P < 0.001) had significantly higher odds of PTSD compared with patients without those conditions. Patients residing in community areas considered the most material deprived (OR 2.1, 95% CI 1.5-2.1, P < 0.001) or the most socially deprived (OR 2.8, 95% CI 2.7-5.3, P < 0.001) had higher odds of being diagnosed with PTSD compared with patients in the least deprived areas., Conclusions: The prevalence of PTSD in Canadian primary care is 1.3% (95% CI 1.25-1.31). Using EMR records we confirmed the co-occurrence of PTSD with other mental health conditions within primary care settings suggesting benefit for improved screening and evidence-based resources to manage PTSD., (© The Author(s) 2022. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For commercial re-use, please contact reprints@oup.com for reprints and translation rights for reprints. All other permissions can be obtained through our RightsLink service via the Permissions link on the article page on our site—for further information please contact journals.permissions@oup.com.)

Primary care, a core feature of sustainable, high-quality healthcare systems, is undergoing significant system changes across Canada. Complex system change often fails without active implementation support. Primary and Community Care (PACC) Mapping is a rapid co-design method that helps community stakeholders engage in planning at various stages of their change. PACC Mapping has been used in multiple provinces for a range of areas, from maternity care to vaccine planning. This paper outlines the PACC Mapping approach, early experiences and scaling through training facilitators., (Copyright © 2023 Longwoods Publishing.)

Objective: To introduce the new Team-based care Evaluation and Adoption Model (TEAM) Framework., Quality of Evidence: The initial TEAM Framework was derived from a series of reviews and consultations with academic and clinical experts. In a parallel process, team-based primary and community care evaluation in Canada was assessed through a structured review of academic literature, followed by a review of policy literature of existing primary care evaluation frameworks., Main Message: The review of academic articles alongside an analysis of policy documents and existing evaluation frameworks in primary care resulted in the development of the 10-dimension TEAM Framework., Conclusion: Primary care transformation requires evaluation over time. The TEAM Framework provides a comprehensive framework for assessing evidence needed to support short- and long-term actionable improvements for team-based primary and community care in Canada. This framework will inform the development of an evaluation tool kit for primary care teams., (Copyright © 2021 the College of Family Physicians of Canada.)

Clinical decision support systems are evolving with growing analytics capabilities towards pervasive use of artificial intelligence. Maturity models can guide the adoption of these new technologies in clinical practice to improve patient outcomes in primary care settings. Our literature survey identified the "Health Analytics Adoption Maturity Model" by Canada Health Infoway as a suitable basis for developing an adoption maturity framework with primary care focus. We follow a design-science research paradigm to develop a scientifically-validated mixed-method approach for assessing and guiding the evolution of clinical analytics capabilities in primary care. This paper summarizes the first phase of our research in progress.

The transmission of pathogens is a common consequence of animal food production. Marine salmon farms and their processing facilities can serve as sources of virulent fish pathogens; our study is the first to confirm the broadcast of a live fish pathogen from a farmed salmon processing facility into the marine waters of Canada's Pacific coast. We found live salmon lice Lepeophtheirus salmonis, mucus, and fish tissue in effluent from the processing facility. Sea lice transmitted from this source may pose a threat to wild salmon populations, and the release of untreated offal, including blood water, is of considerable concern. Further research is needed to quantify the extent to which processing facilities release sea lice and to determine whether more virulent fish pathogens are present in effluent. These data underscore the need for fish farming nations to develop mandatory biosecurity programs to ensure that farmed salmon processing facilities will prevent the broadcast of infectious fish pathogens into wild fish habitat.

This article proposes a Clinical Adoption Framework for making sense of health information system (HIS) success in Canada. It extends Canada Health Infoway's Benefits Evaluation Framework with contextual factors that influence HIS adoption by clinicians, which include people, organization, implementation, and the macro environment. Our hypothesis is that successful clinical adoption of an HIS requires explicit recognition, strategies and actions that address the factors described in the framework. Validation of this framework by stakeholders and literature has thus far been favourable. Its potential application with selected evaluation approaches in specific settings, the implications and work ahead are discussed.