Immigrant women are at greater risk for postpartum depression (PPD) compared to non-immigrant women and experience multiple barriers to accessing health services to address their needs. This mixed method study explored the multi-level factors that contribute to the postpartum mental health of immigrant women in Canada and their ability to access requisite health services. In the quantitative phase, data from a longitudinal prospective cohort survey of women were used to examine predictors of PPD over the first postpartum year for a sample of women who delivered at two hospitals in Toronto, Ontario. In the qualitative phase, an interpretive descriptive design shaped by an integrated knowledge translation approach was used to understand the factors immigrant women living in Scarborough, Ontario (a region of Toronto) perceive as contributing to their postpartum emotional health and the factors immigrant women and care providers perceive as influencing access to health services. Across quantitative and qualitative findings, factors contributing to PPD among immigrant women included a lack of social support, individual and community-level challenges faced in terms of the social health determinants, physical health status, and client-provider relationships. Factors contributing to reduced access to health services included: lack of system knowledge, social health determinants, organizational and system barriers, limited access to treatment, and a need for service integration and system navigation support. Immigrant women in Canada experience numerous health inequities that increase their risk for PPD and v prevent them from accessing service supports to address PPD concerns. The Canadian health care system needs to be responsive to individual needs in order to facilitate equitable access and address the health needs of Canadian immigrant women and their families. The diversity and proportion of immigrants in Canada calls for a linguistically and culturally supportive health care system with a strategic approach to enhancing accessibility to address health inequities. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / Immigrant women have a 2-3 times higher risk for postpartum depression (PPD) than native-born women. This study explored the factors that contribute to PPD among immigrant women in Canada and how health services can help them get the care they need, from the perspective of immigrant women and care providers. This study found increased PPD risk when women lacked social support, had physical health issues, and faced challenges such as low income and lack of English language skills. Working with care providers could help address these challenges or make it more difficult to get care. Immigrant women had more difficulty getting services when they lacked knowledge about the health care system, faced social, financial, and language-based barriers to care, and experienced barriers when using available services. The findings from this research can inform the design and delivery of health care to best meet the needs of immigrant women with PPD.

This research paper was submitted to the Department of Geography in fulfillment of the requirements of Geography 4C6. / <p>This thesis looks at the effects of accessibility on the economic and social development in the state of Sao Paulo, Brazil. Certain indicators, representative of economic and social development were obtained from the Brazilian National Census and these were plotted against distance from Sao Paulo City for analysis. In this case, distance being used as the measure of accessibility. Visual and regression analysis were then performed on the data to examine the relationship between the development parameters and the effects of distance.</p> <p>During the course of the analysis, it was found that not only distance affected the level of development but town size also had and important role. The town size determined the degree of development that was going to occur, regardless of distance from Sao Paulo.</p> / Thesis / Bachelor of Arts (BA)

This digitalization has in many ways contributed to greater inclusion but access to the digital community is not evenly distributed in the population, and we can see that groups of citizens do not feel involved in the transition to a digitalized society, or are not involved as much as they would actually like. The purpose of this thesis is to discuss how designers and developers to a greater extent can be able to take account of accessibility requirements for people with mental and cognitive impairments. The discussion is based on the study “Pilot study on accessibility of electronic communications for persons with mental disabilities”, literature reviews and my experience from almost 25 years of work in the field. The design and development processes I primarily want to highlight are those that produce digital products and services in what we call the mainstream.  Mainstream is the society in which we act as citizens have rights and duties, and where we should be able to realize our dreams, wishes and needs, where we find friends, family, education, livelihood and meaningfulness in the activities and the tasks we perform. The persons who participated in the study describe situations where: Design and development processes often fail to meet the need for cognitive simplicity. Many in themselves relatively simple functions, processes and activities can, used together create new and unknown difficulties. Support processes malfunction. Knowledge of user requirements is missing or does not reach out to the people and the processes where this knowledge would be useful. The people also describes that they are never involved in the design- and development processes, and that the knowledge and experience they possess is not being utilized. There is a need for a transfer of knowledge from the areas that produce knowledge today (rehabilitation, assistive technology, special solutions) to the mainstream. There is a need to explore and describe the knowledge and experience persons with mental and cognitive disabilities possesses. There is a need to work closely with persons who have mental and cognitive disabilities directly in mainstream-solutions in order to improve the digital society. Methods seem to be further developed on how to do this cooperation, in research, in innovation and in ordinary societal processes. The thesis presents a proposed framework for the design and development processes to be able to meet accessibility requirements for persons with mental and cognitive disabilities. / Digitaliseringen har på många sätt bidragit till ökad inkludering, men tillgången till det digitala samhället är inte jämnt fördelat i befolkningen. Vi kan se grupper av medborgare som inte känner sig delaktiga i övergången till ett digitaliserat samhälle, eller som kanske är med fast inte lika mycket som alla andra och inte lika mycket som de egentligen skulle vilja. Avhandlingens syfte är att med utgångspunkt från studien ”Pilotstudie om tillgänglighet till elektronisk kommunikation för personer med psykiska funktionsnedsättningar”, aktuella litteraturöversikter och snart 25 års arbete på fältet diskutera hur designers och utvecklare i högre utsträckning ska kunna beakta krav på tillgänglighet för personer med psykiska och kognitiva funktionsnedsättningar. De design- och utvecklingsprocesser jag i första hand är intresserad av att belysa är sådana som producerar digitala produkter och tjänster inom det vi kallar mainstream, det samhälle där vi agerar som samhällsmedborgare har skyldigheter och rättigheter och där vi efter bästa förmåga ska kunna förverkliga våra drömmar, önskemål och behov. Där vi hittar vänner, familj, utbildning, försörjning och meningsfullhet i de aktiviteter och de sysslor vi utför. De personer som medverkat i studien beskriver situationer där: Design- och utvecklingsprocesser ofta misslyckas med att tillgodose behov av kognitiv enkelhet Många i sig relativt enkla processer och aktiviteter skapar sammantaget nya och okända svårigheter Stödprocesser fungerar dåligt Kunskap om användarnas behov saknas eller når inte ut till personer eller till processer där den skulle göra nytta Personerna beskriver också att de i inte är delaktiga i design- och utvecklingsprocesser och att den kunskap och de erfarenheter de besitter inte tas tillvara. Det finns behov av en överföring av kunskap från de områden som producerar sådan idag (rehabilitering, hjälpmedel, särlösningar) till mainstream. Det finns behov av att utforska och beskriva den kunskap och erfarenhet som finns hos de berörda personerna och till sist finns behov av att direkt i mainstream-samhället och tillsammans med personer som har psykiska och kognitiva funktionsnedsättningar göra detta samhälle mer tillgängligt. Metoder för hur detta ska gå till förefaller behöva utvecklas. Det gäller särskilt metoder för hur personer med psykiska och kognitiva funktionsnedsättningar ska få inflytande över och vara delaktiga i design- och utvecklingsprocesser. Avhandlingen presenterar ett förslag till ramverk för hur design- och utvecklingsprocesser bättre ska kunna möta kraven på tillgänglighet för personer med psykiska och kognitiva funktionsnedsättningar. / <p>QC 20160303</p>

The benefits of occupational therapy (OT) intervention for children with disabilities are numerous and impactful. Among many other advantages, OT can help children to develop their functional living skills, form relationships with others, improve in motor co-ordination, and transition to adulthood (American Occupational Therapy Association [AOTA], 2015). Restricted access to treatment, therefore, can deprive the child, and his or her family of the opportunities to reach their fullest potential. In Trinidad, pediatric occupational therapy is available at private clinics at great costs to families. This is incongruous with the healthcare climate of the nation, in which public-sector care is offered free of charge. Unfortunately, there are no pediatric Governmental OT positions available. Families who cannot afford OT simply will have no access to the services. Three major explanations for the lack of public-sector OT could potentially include doubts of the demand for OT, lack of qualified therapists in the country, and the inability to supply necessary space and equipment. Project Kids CLUB responds to each of these concerns. Primary research demonstrates the irrefutable desire for services, the local Master of Occupational Therapy program provides sufficient staff, and past attempts to begin such a unit resulted in designated space and materials at the Eric William’s Medical Sciences Complex (EWMSC), a public-sector hospital in Trinidad. The realization of Project Kids CLUB has the potential to change the landscape of pediatric care for children and families, the Government, and occupational therapists. Families will benefit from free access to quality care that can increase participation, quality of life and wellbeing. The Government will meet an important societal need, as well as fulfill some of its promises to human rights treaties. Occupational therapists will have the opportunity to impact the public-sector and serve one of the most vulnerable groups of clients. The information presented in this project will be disseminated to the target audiences to raise awareness of pediatric OT in hopes that one day, the proposed Centre for Learning and Understanding Behavior (CLUB) may come to fruition. Findings demonstrate that there is demand for and benefits of pediatric occupational therapy, as well as a realistic means of establishing a unit. This project demonstrates that there is no excuse for the lack of services, and no excuse for any child to be left without access to occupational therapy intervention. / 2019-07-06T00:00:00Z

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether a migration of data and applications towards the cloud entailed any detectable consequences. After that, our goal was to find some kind of solution to these possible problems. We did literature study and to gain a deeper understanding of these issues this study was supplemented with four semi-structured interviews. Our results show that a generally positive perception of cloud services emerges, where availability appears as the primary driving force. Different organizations have different needs, which is why it is important to determine these needs before a migration.Our conclusion is that one should undertake thorough and well-structures preparatory work. Subsequently, it is recommended to consciously choose and follow one or several established migration strategies.

This thesis aims to investigate digital accessibility in the making through the theoretical lens of the assemblage theory. Digital accessibility is a characteristic of digital products and services like websites that allows people with disabilities to access and use them. Although its relevance, digital accessibility is not present in many technological objects. This work intends to describe the adoption of accessibility practices in developing projects and products, focusing mainly on design activities. My leading field site was a tech company located in Stockholm, Sweden, where I observed the “accessibility project” for almost three months, from October to December 2021. During this period, I followed how the company, particularly one of its teams, reacted to new environmental factors, the challenges they faced, and how the process of incorporating these new elements was, from not having accessibility presented in the produced artefacts to incorporating accessibility as a routine. In addition, the study also counted on the participation of Brazilian design practitioners through interviews. The methods were observant participation, semi-structured interviews, and oral accounts.  The main theoretical frameworks were the assemblage theory developed by Manuel DeLanda (2016) and the theory of affordances by Jenny L. Davis (2020). I attempt to analyse the organisation and its nested structures as assemblages, and the processes of changes in their parameters, creating new territory and new code through the adoption of accessibility repertoire. I furthermore analysed the relations between the affordances of technological objects produced by the company’s assemblage, as well as the affordance of accessibility frameworks.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.