Sarah Flicker
Biographic Data
| ID | 196797 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Sarah Flicker |
| GIVEN NAMES | Sarah |
| FAMILY NAME | Flicker |
| SIGNATURE | FLICKER S |
| AFFILIATIONS | York University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6202-5519 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 56 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 234 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 56 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2004 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
Reflections on facilitating teen dating violence prevention programming in schools during the Covid-19 pandemic
This paper presents lessons learned from the development, adaptation and delivery of ‘It’s Complicated’, a grade 9 school-based teen dating violence prevention programme developed in Ontario, Canada, that addresses equity, diversity and emotional violence. Initially designed as an in-person intervention, the programme underwent adjustments for online and hybrid modalities due to COVID-19. This autoethnographic self-study reflects on implementing …
“I think it made me a better person”
Purpose Immigrant youth face both unique and disproportionate barriers to sexual health. Targeted sexual health education to redress these disparities requires creative and inclusive approaches that consider personal and community challenges and strengths. This study piloted a novel intervention: SExT: Sex Education by Theatre, a theatre-based, culturally-relevant, participatory action research programme delivered in an immigration destination ne…
The affective toll of Covid-19 on queer joy
Pandemic restrictions shuttered educational, community and support spaces for queer youth. Despite the pervasive despair, many young, queer people found joy and opportunities for connection, empowerment and intimacy during this period. Through a qualitative thematic analysis of self-reported data from 270 young queer people in Toronto (82), Melbourne (90), and New York (98), this paper explores how queer joy is complicated by less positive and co…
Between cultures and traditions
Immigrant adolescents in Canada face challenges accessing accurate sexual and reproductive health (SRH) information and services. Many challenges stem from taboos associated with SRH, cultural and religious restrictions, and social beliefs regarding the unnecessity of SRH education for adolescents. We explored the SRH experiences of immigrant adolescents in the context of their cultural and religious perspectives. We engaged adolescents as collab…
Declining nudes
Addressing sexting in sexual health education classrooms is one way of supporting young people to become good sexual citizens and to emphasise respect and consent in their sexual practices and in their lives. While a fair amount of research has worked with youth to understand their motivations for sexting, less research has been conducted with in-service teachers to understand their perspectives, pedagogical approaches, and beliefs regarding youn…
Making With Place
Making With Place explores expressions and desires of queer, Indigenous, and racialized young artists on place, community, and culture. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic (from spring 2020 to fall 2021) community-based researchers engaged in participatory arts processes with young artists, culminating in public art installations theorising evolving inquiries and ideas into place. In this paper, we showcase six artworks to exemplify three …
This is what's going to heal our kids’
The Sexy Health Carnival is a peer-developed Indigenous health initiative designed to provide culturally-relevant health information for Indigenous youth. The Carnival takes a strengths-based, holistic approach to address topics in fun and interactive ways. As part of the study described here, the Carnival was taken to 6 First Nations, 3 Métis, and 2 Inuit cultural gatherings in Canada. Due to complex histories of colonialism, bringing sexual hea…
Decolonizing, Indigenizing, and Making Space for Indigenous Girls Visiting York University
We examine the possibilities for Indigenization afforded by a visit from the girls’ group, Young Indigenous Women's Utopia (YIWU), to York University. Through classroom presentations, workshops, and a book launch, the girls shared their knowledge, perspectives, culture, and art, challenged stereotypes, and inspired university community members. The visit encouraged local students and faculty to find innovative ways to disrupt prevailing colonial …
Taking the Sexy Health Carnival across Turtle Island
This article describes a peer-led intervention called the Sexy Health Carnival (SHC) that takes a strengths-based approach to promoting Indigenous youth sexual health in a culturally safe context. Expanding on an Ontario pilot study, a group of Indigenous youth leaders went to 11 Indigenous gatherings across Turtle Island, also known as North America, from 2017 to 2020 where they administered an offline iPad survey to 150 Indigenous youth (aged 1…
“It's been a good time to reflect on…who isn't worth keeping around”
Purpose This paper adds to the growing body of research examining the impacts of COVID-19 physical distancing measures on the everyday lives of young people. It draws on theories of “digital intimacies” and “relationship maintenance” to argue that young people’s reflections on COVID-19, physical distancing and online relationships expose larger gaps in sex, relationships and health education pedagogies. Design/methodology/approach Five semi-struc…
Make sure I hear snoring”
To understand how COVID-19's stay-at-home orders impacted youths' sexual and social development, we conducted five virtual focus groups ( n = 34) with adolescent girls', trans', and non-binary youths' aged 16-19 between April-June 2021 in the GTA. We queried experiences of home, privacy, and sexual wellbeing during Canada's third wave. Auto-generated zoom transcripts were coded using an inductive framework with NVivo. Field notes and team discuss…
Staying safe
Celling Sex was a community-based participatory research project that used a strengths-based approach to explore the agentic harm reduction practices employed by young women who trade sex and learn about their experience accessing health and social services. Fifteen racially diverse young women participated in interviews. They described how they tried to stay safe and advice for others. Each participant also individually made a brief digital vide…
Modelling prevalent cardiovascular disease in an urban Indigenous population
Our modelling identified hypertension, diabetes and exposure to discrimination as factors associated with cardiovascular disease. Discrimination is a modifiable exposure that must be addressed to improve cardiovascular health among Indigenous populations
Picturing Participation
Community engagement is considered a cornerstone of health promotion practice. Yet engagement is a fuzzy term signifying a range of practices. Health scholarship has focused primarily on individual effects of engagement. To understand the complexities of engagement, organizations must also consider relational, structural, and/or organizational factors that inform stakeholders’ subjective understandings and experiences. Community engagement proces…
Quilted cellphilm method
The use of participatory visual methods and integration of cellphone technology is expanding in global public health research. Cellphilm method capitalises on these trends by inviting participants to use mobile devices to create short videos about health topics. This paper presents the quilted cellphilm method, which supports the participation of stigmatised populations to engage in research. We present the method with reference to the Celling Se…
Where are all the Girls and Indigenous People at Igsa@ND
We adopt an autoethnographic approach to share critical reflections from the Young Indigenous Women’s Utopia girls’ group about our experiences attending the 2019 International Girlhood Studies Association conference at the University of Notre Dame (IGSA@ND). Moments of inspiration included sharing our work and connecting with local Indigenous youth. Challenging moments included feeling isolated and excluded since the only girls present at the co…
Some Things Just Won’t Go Back”
We conducted three online focus groups [n=25] with teen girls in Canada in May and June 2020 to explore their dating and relationship experiences during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Given the strict public health measures limiting physical contact, participants reported connecting primarily online with possible dating partners and others. While facilitating platforms, like Snapchat, were already part of these teen girls’ dating and …
Journeying together
Red Ribbon Skirts and Cultural Resurgence
A small group of Indigenous girls and their allies came together to make ribbon skirts to reclaim teachings, resist gender-based and colonial violence, and re-imagine our collective futures. Based on the personal reflections of the organizers and the girls involved gathered through individual semi-structured interviews and directed journal writing, we share lessons about the process and outcomes. Learning about the historical and cultural signifi…
Reflections on Teaching, Learning and Doing Participatory Research in a Graduate Seminar
Mounting a course in this fashion requires a strong community-university partnership, that is supported with substantial preparatory work, human and financial resource commitments, and contingency planning. We recommend transparency, communication and managed expectations
Teaching and learning about the relationships between land, violence and women's bodies
In 2016 the Women’s Environmental Alliance and The Native Youth Sexual Health Network released their toolkit “Violence on the Land, Violence on our Bodies: An Indigenous Response to Violence.” It maps the ways that settler colonialism and extractive industries create conditions of social and biological violence on Indigenous women’s bodies in North America. As a white, cis-gender, female identified, settler professor, I assigned the toolkit to st…
Stay Strong, Stay Sexy, Stay Native
Background Taking Action II is a community-based participatory action research project that adopted a strengths-based approach to thinking about Indigenous youth HIV prevention activism. Eighteen diverse Indigenous youth leaders produced digital stories about Indigenizing HIV prevention during the summer of 2012 at a week-long retreat. Youth were interviewed twice: right after they created their stories and again after community screenings. In th…
Writing peer-reviewed articles with diverse teams
Given the growth of interdisciplinary and community-engaged health promotion research, it has become increasingly common to conduct studies in diverse teams. While there is literature to guide collaborative research proposal development, data collection and analysis, little has been written about writing peer-reviewed publications collaboratively in teams. This gap is particularly important for junior researchers who lead articles involving diver…
Sexy Health Carnival on the Powwow Trail
Background: This article introduces a peer-led pilot intervention called the “Sexy Health Carnival” (SHC) that takes a strengths-based approach to promoting Indigenous youth sexual health in a culturally safe context. Methods: In 2014, Indigenous youth leaders brought the SHC to 4 Ontario, Canada, powwows, where they administered an offline iPad survey to 154 Indigenous youth (aged 16 to 25) who engaged with the SHC. The survey gathered descripti…
"When you follow your heart, you provide that path for others"
Cultivating and supporting Indigenous peer youth leaders should be an important part of Canada’s response to HIV. This paper examines how a group of Indigenous youth leaders took up the notion of leadership in the context of HIV prevention. Taking Action II was a community-based participatory action research project. Eighteen Indigenous youth leaders from across Canada were invited to share narratives about their passion for HIV prevention throug…
Ethical Dilemmas in Community-Based Participatory Research
A Situated Practice of Ethics for Participatory Visual and Digital Methods in Public Health Research and Practice
This article explores ethical considerations related to participatory visual and digital methods for public health research and practice, through the lens of an approach known as “digital storytelling.” We begin by briefly describing the digital storytelling process and its applications to public health research and practice. Next, we explore 6 common challenges: fuzzy boundaries, recruitment and consent to participate, power of shaping, represen…
Ethical Dilemmas in Research on Internet Communities
There has been a rapid growth in the number of articles using Internet data sources to illuminate health behavior. However, little has been written about the ethical considerations of online research, especially studies involving data from Internet discussion boards. Guidelines are needed to ensure ethical conduct. In this article, the authors examine how a youth-focused research program negotiated ethical practices in the creation of its compreh…
E-Par
There is increasing interest in `moving upstream' in youth health promotion efforts to focus on building youth self-esteem, self-efficacy and civic engagement. Participatory Action Research (PAR) can be a powerful mechanism for galvanizing youth to become active agents of this change. Engaging youth in PAR and health promotion, however, is not always an easy task. This article describes a model (e-PAR) for using technology and Participatory Actio…
Research Done in “A Good Way”
Objectives. We examined the role that Indigenous Elders can play in ensuring that community-based research (CBR) is conducted ethically. Methods. We present data from a larger qualitative study exploring ethical issues that occur in HIV-related CBR through the experiences of researchers engaged in CBR. Between May 2010 and July 2011, we interviewed 51 academic and community research team leaders of federally funded HIV CBR studies. We used themat…
Governing through community-based research
The "general public" and specific "communities" are increasingly being integrated into scientific decision-making. This shift emphasizes "scientific citizenship" and collaboration between interdisciplinary scientists, lay people, and multi-sector stakeholders (universities, healthcare, and government). The objective of this paper is to problematize these developments through a theoretically informed reading of empirical data that describes the co…
Public Health Research Involving Aboriginal Peoples
Seeking Safer Sexual Spaces
Young lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people labeled with intellectual disabilities have unique sexual health needs that are not being met. Denial by others of their right to pleasure and the exercise of heightened external control over their sexuality are commonplace. Current research indicates that these youth are at heightened risk for compromised sexual health. This study aimed to explore the ways in which social and environmen…
Falling Through the Cracks of the Big Cities
Navigating Risks and Professional Roles
We examine ethical issues that emerged during a community-based participatory research (CBPR) study in Toronto, Canada, exploring sexual health attitudes and practices among lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, and questioning (LGBTQ) young people (ages 17-26) labeled with intellectual disabilities. These ethical concerns included: (1) managing the risk of coercion, (2) consent to participate in the study, (3) issues of confidentiality and discl…
HIV Risk, Systemic Inequities, and Aboriginal Youth
Stay Strong, Stay Sexy, Stay Native
Background Taking Action II is a community-based participatory action research project that adopted a strengths-based approach to thinking about Indigenous youth HIV prevention activism. Eighteen diverse Indigenous youth leaders produced digital stories about Indigenizing HIV prevention during the summer of 2012 at a week-long retreat. Youth were interviewed twice: right after they created their stories and again after community screenings. In th…
Red Ribbon Skirts and Cultural Resurgence
A small group of Indigenous girls and their allies came together to make ribbon skirts to reclaim teachings, resist gender-based and colonial violence, and re-imagine our collective futures. Based on the personal reflections of the organizers and the girls involved gathered through individual semi-structured interviews and directed journal writing, we share lessons about the process and outcomes. Learning about the historical and cultural signifi…
Ask Me No Secrets, I'll Tell You No Lies
In health research, we depend heavily on the goodwill of study participants. However, the whole social contract of health research is based on the premise that everyone comes to the research table with honorable intentions. What course should we take if we doubt the authenticity of our participants accounts? Through the use of an illustrative case study, this paper will explore three different ways of thinking about (and handling) implausible nar…
Lessons Learned From Undertaking Community-Based Participatory Research Dissertations
Background: For graduate students addressing health issues pertinent to marginalized communities, community-based participatory research (CBPR) methods may be an appropriate mode of inquiry. Although there are a number of useful guides on conducting traditional doctoral dissertations (TDD), there is a paucity of similar resources for students engaged in CBPR
Some Things Just Won’t Go Back”
We conducted three online focus groups [n=25] with teen girls in Canada in May and June 2020 to explore their dating and relationship experiences during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Given the strict public health measures limiting physical contact, participants reported connecting primarily online with possible dating partners and others. While facilitating platforms, like Snapchat, were already part of these teen girls’ dating and …
If You Teach Them, They Will Come
Decolonizing, Indigenizing, and Making Space for Indigenous Girls Visiting York University
We examine the possibilities for Indigenization afforded by a visit from the girls’ group, Young Indigenous Women's Utopia (YIWU), to York University. Through classroom presentations, workshops, and a book launch, the girls shared their knowledge, perspectives, culture, and art, challenged stereotypes, and inspired university community members. The visit encouraged local students and faculty to find innovative ways to disrupt prevailing colonial …
Modelling prevalent cardiovascular disease in an urban Indigenous population
Our modelling identified hypertension, diabetes and exposure to discrimination as factors associated with cardiovascular disease. Discrimination is a modifiable exposure that must be addressed to improve cardiovascular health among Indigenous populations
Where are all the Girls and Indigenous People at Igsa@ND
We adopt an autoethnographic approach to share critical reflections from the Young Indigenous Women’s Utopia girls’ group about our experiences attending the 2019 International Girlhood Studies Association conference at the University of Notre Dame (IGSA@ND). Moments of inspiration included sharing our work and connecting with local Indigenous youth. Challenging moments included feeling isolated and excluded since the only girls present at the co…
Teaching and learning about the relationships between land, violence and women's bodies
In 2016 the Women’s Environmental Alliance and The Native Youth Sexual Health Network released their toolkit “Violence on the Land, Violence on our Bodies: An Indigenous Response to Violence.” It maps the ways that settler colonialism and extractive industries create conditions of social and biological violence on Indigenous women’s bodies in North America. As a white, cis-gender, female identified, settler professor, I assigned the toolkit to st…
Speaking Our Truths, Building Our Strengths
Ethical Dilemmas in Research on Internet Communities
There has been a rapid growth in the number of articles using Internet data sources to illuminate health behavior. However, little has been written about the ethical considerations of online research, especially studies involving data from Internet discussion boards. Guidelines are needed to ensure ethical conduct. In this article, the authors examine how a youth-focused research program negotiated ethical practices in the creation of its compreh…
Section I
Section II
African Americans experience the greatest amount of tobacco related health disparities. Recent tobacco control programs have not closed the gap in disparities for African Americans. This poster see~s to pr~vide a theoretical framework for addressing the health inequities in tobacco among African Americans usmg the work of critical race theorists Richard Delgado and Kimberlie Crenshaw. Critical race theory has been used predominately in the legal …
Falling Through the Cracks of the Big Cities
Ethical Dilemmas in Community-Based Participatory Research
HIV Risk, Systemic Inequities, and Aboriginal Youth
Who Benefits From Community-Based Participatory Research? A Case Study of the Positive Youth Project
Community-based participatory research (CBPR) has evolved as a popular new paradigm in health research. This shift is exciting, yet there is still much to discover about how various stakeholders are affected. This article uses a critical social science perspective to explore who benefits from these changes through an analysis of a CBPR case study (The Positive Youth Project). Two major categories of beneficiaries emerged: the research itself and …
Ethical Approaches to Adolescent Participation in Sexual Health Research
The greater involvement of people living with Aids principle
Drawing on the Greater Involvement of People with HIV/AIDS (GIPA) principle, the HIV/AIDS movement began to "democratize" research in Canada in the mid-1990s. To date, there is little evidence about the success of the community-based research (CBR) movement in relation to the implementation of GIPA. We draw on findings from a larger study examining barriers and facilitating factors in relation to HIV-related CBR in Ontario, Canada. An online surv…
E-Par
There is increasing interest in `moving upstream' in youth health promotion efforts to focus on building youth self-esteem, self-efficacy and civic engagement. Participatory Action Research (PAR) can be a powerful mechanism for galvanizing youth to become active agents of this change. Engaging youth in PAR and health promotion, however, is not always an easy task. This article describes a model (e-PAR) for using technology and Participatory Actio…
Community-based research in Aids-service organizations
BACKGROUND: Community-based research (CBR) approaches have become commonplace in many North American HIV communities. In many large urban centers, AIDS-service organizations (ASOs) have become active research hubs, advocating for research dollars in community settings. While ASOs have historically integrated local knowledge into their prevention, care and advocacy initiatives, many are now initiating or collaborating in research which addresses e…
Are We Asking the Right Questions? A Review of Canadian REB Practices in Relation to Community-Based Participatory Research
Access barriers to effective ethics review continue to be a significant challenge for researchers and community-based organizations undertaking community-based participatory research (CBPR). This article reports on findings from a content analysis of select (Behavioural, Biomedical, Social Sciences, Humanities) research ethics boards (REBs) in the Canadian research context (n = 86). Existing ethics review documentation was evaluated using 30 CBPR…
Dilemmas and tensions facing a faith-based organisation promoting HIVprevention among young people in South Africa
Faith-based organisations (FBOs) are receiving growing attention for their roles in addressing HIV and AIDS in southern Africa. These roles, however, are not without philosophical challenges. Yet, to date, most references to the successes or limitations of FBOs have remained the domain of theoretical and, often, ideological debate. In this context, discussions about the roles of faith and FBOs in responding to HIV and AIDS often evoke extreme pos…
The effects of gender and socioeconomic status on youth sexual-risknorms
HIV and AIDS remains one of the most serious problems facing youths in many sub-Saharan African countries. Among young people in South Africa, gender is linked with a number of HIV-risk behaviours and outcomes. The literature suggests that factors such as socioeconomic status, intimate partner violence, and several psychosocial factors contribute to gendered differences in sexual behaviour among youths in South Africa. However, the existing body …
Lessons Learned From Undertaking Community-Based Participatory Research Dissertations
Background: For graduate students addressing health issues pertinent to marginalized communities, community-based participatory research (CBPR) methods may be an appropriate mode of inquiry. Although there are a number of useful guides on conducting traditional doctoral dissertations (TDD), there is a paucity of similar resources for students engaged in CBPR
Is 80% a passing grade? Meanings attached to condom use in an abstinence-plus HIV prevention programme in South Africa
This study represents the first qualitative exploration of how condoms are perceived by at-risk youth, their parents, their teachers and HIV prevention programme staff in an abstinence-plus HIV prevention programme. Behavioural interventions for HIV prevention with youth may be divided into three categories, each with a different approach to condoms: abstinence-only, abstinence-plus and comprehensive approaches. Research has highlighted the limit…
Gendered perceptions of HIV risk among young women and men in a high-HIV-prevalence setting
It has become evident that sexual health and HIV-risk behaviours cannot be addressed effectively without paying adequate attention to constructions of gender and sexuality. While the body of literature examining these themes is growing and becoming more nuanced, there is still a significant gap in our understanding of the relationship between gendered sexual identities and vulnerabilities to disease. In particular, few studies have explored how y…
Navigating Risks and Professional Roles
We examine ethical issues that emerged during a community-based participatory research (CBPR) study in Toronto, Canada, exploring sexual health attitudes and practices among lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, and questioning (LGBTQ) young people (ages 17-26) labeled with intellectual disabilities. These ethical concerns included: (1) managing the risk of coercion, (2) consent to participate in the study, (3) issues of confidentiality and discl…
Public Health Research Involving Aboriginal Peoples
Seeking Safer Sexual Spaces
Young lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people labeled with intellectual disabilities have unique sexual health needs that are not being met. Denial by others of their right to pleasure and the exercise of heightened external control over their sexuality are commonplace. Current research indicates that these youth are at heightened risk for compromised sexual health. This study aimed to explore the ways in which social and environmen…
Governing through community allegiance
The disappointing results of many public health interventions have been attributed in part to the lack of meaningful community engagement in the planning, implementation, and evaluation of these initiatives. Community-based participatory research (CBPR) has emerged as an alternative research paradigm that directly involves community members in all aspects of the research process. Their involvement is often said to be an empowering experience that…
If You Teach Them, They Will Come
“Because we have really unique art”
Indigenous communities in Canada share a common history of colonial oppression. As a result, many Indigenous populations are disproportionately burdened with poor health outcomes, including HIV. Conventional public health approaches have not yet been successful in reversing this trend. For this study, a team of community- and university-based researchers came together to imagine new possibilities for health promotion with Indigenous youth. A stre…
Factors Associated with Access to Sexual Health Services Among Teens in Toronto
A Situated Practice of Ethics for Participatory Visual and Digital Methods in Public Health Research and Practice
This article explores ethical considerations related to participatory visual and digital methods for public health research and practice, through the lens of an approach known as “digital storytelling.” We begin by briefly describing the digital storytelling process and its applications to public health research and practice. Next, we explore 6 common challenges: fuzzy boundaries, recruitment and consent to participate, power of shaping, represen…
Sociology (44 works) · Psychology (38 works) · Political science (36 works) · Medicine (28 works) · Gender Studies (21 works) · Public relations (20 works) · Social Psychology (16 works) · Gender Studies (15 works) · Indigenous (15 works) · Participatory action research (15 works)