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Background: Families face significant mental health challenges after preterm birth. However, there are few low-cost and sustainable services to help with mental health challenges. Purpose: To understand suggestions for low-cost and sustainable mental health supports to help families. Methods: This was an internet-based survey made available to preterm families through the Canadian Premature Babies Foundation social media (Facebook private parents' group). Results: Families reported that peer support, such as connecting with other parents and families who experience preterm birth, was most beneficial. Parents also reported ways to allow families to access the existing mental health services, such as providing child care options and improving advertisement of available resources. Implications: Our results can help implement beneficial low-cost and sustainable mental health supports across many contexts (eg, hospitals and community organization) both in-person and online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public institutions are changing, alongside social, economic, and environmental forces, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Public libraries and universities are two institutions in flux and thereby can benefit from research that helps guide decision-making. In times of austerity and crisis, resources are often stretched thin, interrupting research activities. To overcome this challenge, we draw on the authors' experiences being involved in a research platform that consists of a public library, a university, and four other community organizations. Using the research platform as a case study, the authors examine lessons learned about sharing infrastructure to support sustainable and mutually beneficial research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Leisure engagement is linked to well-being and social integration, which is important for older adults, who are particularly at risk for social isolation (SI). The aim of this study was to examine the meanings and importance of leisure across the life course. We conducted life history interviews with twenty-six older adults who participated in (primarily) library-based writing programs in Southern Ontario, Canada. We employed narrative inquiry to investigate the processes and outcomes of writing ABOUT leisure. Herein, we highlight the results of one theme from our findings: 'writing AS leisure,' and two associated sub-themes: 'writing as purposeful leisure: relationship building and social capital' and 'being written out of the story: writing and isolation.' Findings speak to how participants rationalized their involvement in various forms of leisure, and the resultant types and qualities of the social relationships that were enabled and/or inhibited by engagement therein. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An Internet project, sarsart.org that features digital artworks created in response to the 2003 SARS outbreak is examined. It is argued that Internet projects such as sarsart.org can increase the capacity for cultural resistance by creating greater opportunities for the expression of political opposition to institutional authority.

The reasons behind using complementary therapies by people with HIV/AIDS are discussed. Perspectives on western medicine and the use of complementary therapies by individuals with different social backgrounds, experiences and circumstances are studied in depth.

This study examines the meanings that individuals with HIV attach to their use of complementary therapies. A qualitative analysis of 66 interviews completed between 1993 and 1998 showed that complementary therapies represent different things for these individuals - a health maintenance strategy, a healing strategy, an alternative to Western medicine, a way of mitigating the side-effects of drug therapies, a strategy for maximizing quality of life, a coping strategy, and a form of political resistance. We found that the meanings individuals ascribe to complementary therapies and the benefits they expect to derive from them are not idiosyncratic, but linked to social characteristics - sexuality, ethnocultural background, gender - and to beliefs about health and illness, values and experiences. We found as well that these meanings are neither mutually exclusive nor fixed. The therapies often appeal to individuals on different levels and their appeal may change over time.

This article examines how older adults make decisions about their medications through interconnected axes of trust that operate across social networks. Trust is negotiated by older adults enrolled in a deprescribing programme which guides them through the process of reducing medications to mitigate risks associated with polypharmacy. Habermas' work on the significance of communicative action in negotiating trust within social relationships informs our analysis, specifically in-depth semi-structured interviews with older adults about their medication use and the role of social networks in managing their health. Participants were age 70+ and experiencing polypharmacy. Our analysis discusses the social nature of medication practices and the importance of social networks for older adults' decision-making. Their perspective reflects the critique of late-modern society put forward by Habermas. Negotiating trust in pharmaceutical decision-making requires navigating tensions across and between system networks (health-care professionals) and life-world networks (family and friends). This study contributes to our knowledge of how distinct forms of trust operate in different social spheres, setting the context for the way health-care decisions are made across social networks. Our analysis reinforces the need for older adults to engage meaningfully in health-care decision-making such that a convergence between system-world and life-world structures is encouraged. This would improve deprescribing programmes' efficacy as older adults optimise their medication use and improve overall quality of life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amid global population aging and technological advancement, this article seeks to support public librarians in innovating programs for older adults. It compares how Canadian and Australian public libraries approach this task using environmental scans and thematic analyses within both countries. Findings reveal that Canadian and Australian librarians similarly seek to craft programs that target the informational interests of older adults, increase digital literacy, mitigate social isolation, and combat ageism by means of community engagement, strategic partnerships, and experimentation. Findings highlight similar approaches to overcoming programming challenges and differences in how they market older adult specific programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historical forces and factors affecting the development of Canada's bilingual programs for ethnic minorities include changing immigration policies, a decline in Anglo-conformism and growth in multiculturalism, fears about native language maintenance and second language learning, and language and cultural attitudes in second language learning. (MSE)