This paper describes the technical approach in the TUFFA (Technology Procurement for Disabled in Working Life) project and a model for cooperating areas of competence based on a holistic view of the individual's abilities, the environmental conditions at the work site, and technical solutions.
University of Alberta Pulmonary Research Group, CIHR Institute of Aboriginal Peoples' Health, University of Alberta, 173 HMRC University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G 2S2, Canada. malcolm.king@ualberta.ca
Indigenous peoples across all the continents of the globe live with major gaps in health status and health outcomes associated with well-described social determinants of health, such as poverty and poor education. Indigenous peoples face additional health determinant issues associated with urbanization, isolation from traditional territories, and loss of cultural continuity. Indigenous children are particularly vulnerable as they grow up in isolation from their cultural and social roots and yet are also separated from the mainstream environment of their society. Programs to address these difficult health issues should be viewed as complex clinical interventions with health researchers, social scientists, and clinicians working together with Indigenous peoples to identify the most pressing needs and most appropriate and workable solutions that will result in effective policies and practices.
Institutionen för kvinnors och barns hälsa, barn- och ungdomspsykiatriska enheten, Astrid Lindgrens barnsjukhus, Karolinska institutet, Stockholm. per-anders.rydelius@ks.se
In Swedish child and adolescent psychiatry there is a more than 60-year long tradition of using longitudinal methods in research on juvenile delinquency. Since the 1940's, results have been presented using either prospective or retrospective longitudinal designs for this purpose. Starting from genetics as scientific paradigm, new approaches including neuropsychiatry and social psychiatry showed the need for a multidisciplinary view at the border between medicine and behavioral sciences. Both Swedish and international research in the area has clearly demonstrated that factors relating to gender, maturation, resilience vs. vulnerability, the mental health of the parents, the social network and the organization of the school are of importance when trying to understand, prevent and treat juvenile delinquents. The challenge presented to today's and future researchers is to understand how the complexity of the modern western society will impact already established knowledge.
In a phenomenological research study with a purposeful sample, 6 Ojibwa and Cree indigenous women healers from Canada and the United States shared their experience of being a traditional healer. Using stories obtained during open-ended, unstructured interviews, in this article I depict the lives, backgrounds, and traditional healing practices of women who, in the past, have not been afforded an opportunity to dialogue about their healing art and abilities. The methods of these women healers, their arts and their gifts, are different from those of Western conventional medicine because of dissimilar world views related to health and illness. An increased awareness of health care providers related to the ancient art of traditional healing currently practiced in communities by gifted women who provide culturally specific holistic healing and health care is essential.
