Uncover Research
Refugee rations
Project explores effect of food shortages on families living in refugee camps
By Karen Cook
Anne-Marie Magny Dusablon sees herself as a citizen of the planet. From her childhood in Mexico and the Dominican Republic to an undergraduate nursing practicum in West Africa, the Montreal native discovered she could combine career and adventure while making a global difference.
The Faculty of Nursing master’s student’s most recent project with Lynn McIntyre, professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences, is a great start. The two journeyed to Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh to understand food insecurity among female heads of households.
“People living in refugee camps caught my attention when I worked in a dispensary in West Africa,” says Magny Dusablon, adding that she happened upon this virtually unknown refugee group on the internet. In December 1991, about 250,000 Muslim Rohingya refugees from Mynamar sought asylum in southeastern Bangladesh; 26,000 of whom remain in the two camps she and McIntyre visited last spring. They conducted one-on-one in-depth interviews with 31 female heads of households; women whose husbands had abandoned them, disappeared or died. Their questions centred on the acquisition, preparation and distribution of food in the family as a lens that illuminated the daily lives of women in the camps.
“It was overwhelming that food insecurity is so severe and a preoccupation for these women despite the rations they receive,” says Magny Dusablon. These rations, she explains, provided by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and World Food Programme, frequently must be “converted” into other food in order for the family to supplement their diet. For example, the bi-weekly distribution of rations would include rice, oil, sugar, salt and blended food which, while containing protein and energy, lacks sufficient minerals and vitamins for long-term health.
To add diversity, women sell or trade ration items for other foods, mostly fish and vegetables.
Borrowing, lending, trading, selling and buying food create a situation of food debt, which generates an endless cycle and creates, among other things, adverse psychosocial impacts on these families and in the camps.
Greater self-sufficiency is key, says Magny Dusablon. “Additional and more diverse food should be delivered in a way that could stimulate mutual aid, agricultural skill-building, community cooperation and economic expansion.” Other recommendations she and McIntyre suggest include increasing the level of literacy as well as the marketable skills of the women.
The final written report has been shared with the UNHCR, 14 diplomatic missions, including the European Union, and governmental policy makers who are intervening in this critical area.
For Magny Dusablon, this experience has fueled her future direction. “I would love to do more work overseas with women refugee populations,” she says, although she feels Canada can use her skills just as much. “We aren’t doing the right things for refugees here. They’re Canadian and we need to stop looking at them as different from us. We can develop a health-care system that is fit for all.”
Health across borders
Veterinary medicine researchers to improve the health of animals and humans
By Leanne Niblock
One of the Sri Lankan victims of the 2004 tsunami had just been given a big job—improving public health capacity in the developing nation. On the heels of diseases such as SARS, BSE (mad cow disesase) and avian influenza, the Sri Lankan government, like much of the world, recognized it had little or no ability to predict, prevent or deal with public health issues that arose from human interactions with animals.
Dr. Sam Daniel, charged with animal health and productivity within Sri Lanka, was visiting his son in Canada in 2005 when he heard about a group of Canadians starting Veterinarians Without Borders-Canada (VWB). He put out a call for help and was answered by Dr. Craig Stephen, a founding member of VWB, a member of the Centre for Coastal Health and an associate professor in the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at the U of C.
“Three-quarters of all recent emerging infectious diseases come from animals,” says Stephen. “The global public health community now recognizes that the control of disease in animals is the principle way to reduce human exposure and prevent these emerging diseases.”
Stephen and Daniel decided to jointly apply for the Teasdale Corti Global Health Research Initiative (GHRI)—the first big global health fund created in Canada—and developed by founding partners of the CIHR (Canadian Institutes of Health Research), IDRC (International Development Research Centre), Health Canada and CIDA (Canadian International Development Agency).
More than $1.3 million from Teasdale Corti and another $40,000 from the Public Health Agency of Canada is now in hand.
“We’ll host academic exchanges, but it’s important to us to keep the knowledge base in the area. We have money for about 12 graduate students; all but two of those will be Sri Lankan,” says Stephen.
One of two Canadians going to Sri Lanka is Kate Sawford, a veterinarian working on her PhD in Calgary. She will be in Sri Lanka in the summer of 2008 and will be working with veterinarians, farmers and others to create better ways to identify and report emerging diseases.
“I think we won the grant because our plan isn’t about Canadians taking over. It is about building partnerships and capacity in the area, asking how you create a veterinary public health system that works for farmers, village leaders, scientists and governments,” says Stephen.
Healthy Space
Researchers explores the health of our built environment
by Joe Obad
Beauty without health is failure—words from Tang Lee, an associate professor in the Faculty of Environmental Design who agrees aesthetics are a deeply important aspect of design, but should also emphasize a healthy interaction of people, spaces and products.
Lee has researched how our built environment can make us sick and what we can do to create healthier spaces. For three decades, he has examined everything from acoustics and lighting, to air quality and volatile organic compounds in construction materials, and the effects of these design elements on human health.
Calgarians know Lee for his involvement with the closing of the Alberta Court of Appeal building in 2001. He led an interdisciplinary team drawing upon strengths in social work, medicine, microbiology, engineering and architecture to determine why the court building made staff ill for years.
Previous “linear” investigations had missed the moulds and toxins that Lee’s holistic method quickly found. His team’s evidence forced the closure of the old building and led to a new facility in 2003.
Lee’s approach to healthy design has led to several international research exchanges. At China’s Chongqing University, he has taught courses on lighting, building envelopes and sustainable design. He researched the relationship between indoor air quality and health at the University of Hong Kong. California Polytechnic University looked to Lee to assist development of its Master of Science in Regenerative Studies program.
Recently, Lee has expanded his inquiry to include the influence of Electro-Magnetic Frequency (EMF) on human health. He laments how rapidly we have accepted our wireless world with little consideration for health implications.
“We once viewed tobacco and asbestos uncritically, and look at what happened. Our blasé attitude towards EMF now is similar. In 20 years, we may wake up to significant negative consequences related to our cumulative exposure to EMF,” remarks Lee.
Lee will use his 2008 sabbatical to work with doctors and lawyers in North Carolina on a book exploring environmental health. Their work will partially address the moral dimension of design.
“If we build something that lasts 80 to 100 years, what is our responsibility to the millions who pass through these buildings?” Lee asks. “When you begin to look at issues of health and sustainability, making sure that the roof doesn’t fall in is only the beginning.”