Covering over 30 years of research, this scoping review is arguably the first project of its kind to understand the landscape of both spiritual health and spirituality (in relation to health) in Canada. From an initial 4,977 articles collated, 187 articles met the inclusion criteria and were clustered around fifty primary health-related contexts. Collectively, our findings highlight where future research on this topic may be directed. This review also shares key thematic trends, namely the nuanced convergence of spirituality with religion concerning health; the other dimensions of health that spirituality is connected to or discussed with; the presence/role of interfaith dialogue; and the cultural considerations concerning spirituality and health.
Simon Lasair’s Spirituality and Holistic Spiritual Health advances our understanding of what spiritual care and holistic spiritual health might entail within an increasingly secu-lar and post-secular landscape. Though writing primarily for spiritual care practitioners, Lasair re-envisions and theoretically instantiates spiritual care for a broader readership, critically working to legitimize the field while elucidating spirituality in ways that render it both intelligible and operational within clinical practice.
This entry shares design recommendations, including participa-tory approaches, the integration of intersectionality, and accountability in design processes, while also embedding responsiveness , adaptability, equity, and broader systemic awareness into technology design processes. Such approaches emphasize that inclusive design must account for context, diversity, history , and power. By centering aging and disability as complex, fluid, and intersecting experiences, this entry argues for a justice-oriented vision of technology design. One that values difference, resists extractive practices , and fosters equity across diverse communities of older adults. Ultimately, inclusive technology is not only about accessibility or usability; it is about enabling agency across the lifespan, ensuring that older adults are recognized as co-creators of technologies that shape their present and future well-being.
South Asian (SA) communities in Ontario, Canada experienced disproportionately higher rates of COVID-19 infection. Moreover, these communities also faced racism fueled by COVID-19-related misinformation and xenophobic sentiments that placed blame on them for virus transmission. The aim of this research was to understand, from the perspective of local SA communities, the causes behind higher incidences of COVID-19. SA adults (N = 25) participated in a focus group (N = 3) investigating experiences during the early stages of the pandemic. This research provides insight into the role that health officials can play in addressing local and regional discrimination and stigma to promote equity-centered disease prevention efforts. Our findings should be integral to current and ongoing research and action related to pandemic preparedness.
Coptic Christians and other Middle Eastern Christians havelong endured profound persecution and suffering on accountof their faith, from overt acts of violence and discrimination to more insidious forms of marginalization. In confrontingthese horrific realities, however, Lukasik’s approach is not areactionary account but a carefully and empathetically framedanalysis of persecution politics—politics that, quite literally,“migrate” between Egypt and Coptic diasporic communities andincreasingly hold the potential to be scaled globally. Lukasik isalso careful not to essentialize Coptic experiences of persecutionbut instead examines them whilst considering concepts of empire,kinship, memory, and violence. This interdisciplinary perspectiveis noteworthy since it produces a refreshing, transnational storyof the Coptic community beyond the discursive constructionof “Coptic victimhood for a Western gaze” (123), while seekingto reconcile the “national unity rhetoric” (125) among otherrhetorics in the context of Muslim-Christian relations in Egypt.Overall, Martyrs and Migrants is a powerful work that richlydetails Coptic lifeworlds and communal formation, as well asthe internal and external forces that mediate them from theinside out. This book will draw interest among socioculturalanthropologists, historians, scholars of religion and the MiddleEast, as well as scholars in Coptic studies, and will find a homein upper-division undergraduate and graduate courses acrossanthropology and related fields.
This is the first Métis-specific study to explore and gather the lived experiences and stories of MNO citizens regarding the impact of housing conditions on their health. Our findings revealed a multifaceted relationship between housing and health, extending beyond individual’s living conditions, with a significant impact on Métis citizens’ mental health. The results will be used to inform MNO housing programs to increase Métis homeownership and improve affordable housing options.
This scoping review explores Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) initiatives within geriatric healthcare professional education, aiming to understand strategies, outcomes, and challenges. The aging global population necessitates healthcare systems that are culturally competent and inclusive, prompting a closer examination of educational interventions. The findings underscore the increased uptake and desire to integrate EDI principles into geriatric healthcare education to prepare professionals to provide equitable care to racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, and gender diverse older adults. This review provides valuable insights for educators and policymakers seeking to foster a culturally competent and inclusive healthcare workforce capable of meeting the evolving needs of aging populations worldwide.
This review will chart interventions, their educational context, and their outcomes. Key data to be extracted include study design, intervention details, and learner outcomes, emphasizing cultural competence and attitudes. Conclusion Findings will provide a consolidated framework for developing evidence-based EDI interventions in rehabilitation education, addressing gaps in preparing a workforce capable of delivering equitable care in diverse contexts. Recommendations will guide future research and practice, advancing inclusivity and equity in rehabilitation education.
This book chapter addresses the importance of recovering the treasures of knowledge and epistemology found in the private lifeworlds of women—knowledge that might otherwise remain underexamined or sidelined—as a means of reforming and re-enchanting higher education. Indeed, there is an intimacy in women's private worlds steeped in a special kind of knowledge. This approach not only preserves the often-underexamined stories of women's private lifeworlds, but also advocates for a more integrated model of education that facilitates pedagogical and epistemic osmosis between family, work, and personal life, rather than perpetuating a sharp disconnect between these spheres. By tracing epistemic shifts across the centuries in Michel Foucault's The Order of Things (1966), along with my own autoethnography as a previously homeschooled child, I aim to crystallize and materialize this thesis further, in line with my anthropological disciplinary approach.
Subject Matter Experts (SME) play a fundamental role in shaping community-based research. Engaging SMEs (Phase 1) prior to community involvement (Phase 2) is imperative for generative and fruitful research. Despite the extensive body of literature on community engagement and the important role of SMEs, this literature is often coupled with a lack of clarity behind step-by-step guides of what that process may look like. Six methodologically insightful themes emerged from the data analysis, including (1) cultural context and cultural safety, (2) awareness of challenges that Black older adults face, (3) tailoring the research process to center the community’s diversity, (4) the critical role of trust and strategies for building trust, (5) uncovering research and healthcare gaps, and (6) intergenerational engagement in creating age-friendly communities. Conclusion: Findings will inform the design of a needs assessment for Black older adults in the GTA, as well as the development of technologies and policies that centralize Black older adults’ needs, preferences, and abilities.
In Canada, Métis people are one of three distinct Indigenous Peoples whose rights are recognized and affirmed in Section 35 of the federal Constitution Act, 1982. Currently, there is a paucity of health research regarding Métis maternal and prenatal in Canada. Prenatal care is a frequently used health service that can reduce the incidence of perinatal morbidity and mortality and measures of adequate prenatal care have been established in the Canadian context. The objective of our study is to examine the receipt of adequate prenatal care among mothers who are citizens of the Métis Nation of Ontario (MNO) who had a live birth between 2012 and 2022. This population-based study will use the MNO citizenship registry linked to health administrative and demographic databases in Ontario, Canada’s most populous province.
This study aims to develop a culturally relevant and inclusive needs assessment to inform the design of tailored technology solutions for Black older adults. Semi-structured, individual interviews were conducted with four Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) to ensure the larger study was tailored to the population's needs, including informing recruitment strategies. A three-member coding team conducted a content analysis on the interview transcriptions focusing on the research objectives. The findings provide valuable insights into best practices for conducting racially and culturally appropriate research and identify the everyday challenges Black older adults face in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). Moreover, the findings underscore the significance of considering social determinants in study development and understanding the challenges. The discussions with the SMEs exemplify the importance of this methodology to ensure the study is relevant to the community in which they are situated. This study lays the groundwork for a deeper understanding of the challenges Black older adults in the GTA face and the potential solutions to address them.
Currently, literature on spiritual health remains limited. Even more so, literature on spiritual health remains limited in Canada. This is exacerbated by the fact that spiritual health is a term that remains widely contested with no concrete definition. Meanwhile, the semantic connection between “religion” and “spirituality” remains ambiguous in the West and scholars hold different positions. In this paper, we outline our scoping review protocol to describe the current landscape of spiritual health and spirituality (in relation to health) research in Canada, including the meaning and understanding behind these two concepts. Methods and analysis This protocol for our scoping review is documented in accordance with the PRISMA-P reporting guidelines and adheres to Arksey and O’Malley’s scoping review methodology. We will conduct a search strategy across select electronic databases and review the reference lists of chosen papers. Two reviewers, HMB and MM, will independently and blindly screen all title/abstracts and full-text studies for eligibility. Any Canadian-situated studies that centrally mention and focus on “spirituality” or “spiritual health” will be included. Relevant variables will be extracted through an iterative process, with the data charting being continuously reviewed and refined. Findings from this scoping review will support the future of health research and conceptual expansion of health beyond the mental, physical and social. Approval from a research ethics board is not required, nor has it been obtained, as the data is derived from journal articles and academic publications.
The overincarceration of Indigenous peoples and its impacts on individual and community health is a growing concern across Canada and the United States. Federally run Healing Lodges in Canada are an example of support services for incarcerated and previously incarcerated Indigenous peoples to reintegrate into community and support their healing journey. However, there is a need to synthesise research which investigates these programmes. We report a protocol for a scoping review that is guided by the following research question: What is known about culturally informed programmes and services available to incarcerated and previously incarcerated Indigenous peoples in Canada and the US? This scoping review will follow guidelines published by the Joanna Briggs Institute and the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for scoping reviews. This review will only identify programmes that are guided by Indigenous ways of being and knowing in order to best serve Indigenous communities and our community partners. The results of this review will support the development of programmes that are necessary for understanding and addressing the diverse needs of incarcerated and previously incarcerated Indigenous peoples.
In Canada, Métis people are one of three distinct Indigenous peoples whose rights are recognised and affirmed in Section 35 of the federal Constitution Act, 1982. In line with Métis people having a unique culture, history, language and way of life, a distinctions-based approach is critical to understand the current landscape of Métis-specific health. In this paper, we present a scoping review protocol to describe this research landscape in Canada led by the Métis Nation of Ontario (MNO).
Objective: To identify, from the perspective of South Asian communities, areas for improvement in public health communication. Methods: Focus groups were conducted with individuals (N=24) who could converse in English and self-identified as South Asian adults (18+) residing in Ontario. Participants were asked to share how, if at all, their identity as South Asian shaped their experiences during the pandemic and acceptance of public health measures put in place to mitigate the spread. Data were interpreted through the lens of intersectionality. Results: Participants perceived a lack of culturally relevant and linguistically accessible health messaging, leading to the proliferation of misinformation. Peer-to-peer knowledge sharing filled a critical gap but created opportunities for misinformation to spread. Conclusion: Improving equity in health communications should be informed by structural changes to the public health sector in Ontario.