Candace I J Nykiforuk
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 277211 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Candace I J Nykiforuk |
| NOMBRES | Candace I J |
| APELLIDO | Nykiforuk |
| FIRMA | NYKIFORUK C I J |
| AFILIACIONES | University of Alberta |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1017-5475 |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 57 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 191 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 57 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2003 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 7 |
Nature-based learning as a support for child and family learning and health
Nature can benefit learning through various mechanisms such as improved attention and mood and opportunities for physical activity. These mechanisms also support childhood health and development. Nature-based learning (NBL) is one strategy instructors can employ to harness these benefits in early childhood education. The purpose of this study was to explore parent/guardian and instructor perceptions of learning in NBL programs for young children.…
Evidence-informed recommendations for municipal supports of people experiencing homelessness during extreme weather events
Municipalities are increasingly faced with a growing climate justice issue: the intersection of rising housing vulnerabilities (e.g. increased rates of homelessness) and climate hazards (e.g. extreme weather events), which disproportionately impact people experiencing homelessness (PEH). Despite the strong role that municipalities have to play in supporting PEH during extreme weather events, municipal interventions remain poorly researched. To in…
Longitudinal studies of neighbourhood social cohesion and mental health
OBJECTIVES: This review aimed to examine how neighbourhood social cohesion has been defined and operationalized in longitudinal mental health research, and determine its associations with depression, anxiety, suicidality, psychological distress, and positive mental health across the lifecourse. METHODS: Relevant articles were identified on February 6, 2024, in Medline, Embase, PsycINFO, CINAHL, and Web of Science. Eligible studies used quantitati…
Describing patterns of support for alcohol reduction policies among policy influencers and general public in Alberta (2016–2021)
BACKGROUND: Uptake of alcohol policies has been limited in Canada. Using data from Alberta, we examined 1) patterns in support for alcohol policies among policy influencers and the general public, and 2) identified socio-demographic predictors of policy support separately among policy influencers and general public. METHODS: We used survey datasets (2016-2021) obtained from the Chronic Disease Prevention Survey that collected data from policy inf…
Population health equity provisions in impact assessment
Navigating the CBD
Process evaluation of an HIV stigma reduction intervention among young people in northern Uganda
HIV stigma among youth in Uganda remains prevalent and impedes efforts to advance HIV prevention. A community-based participatory approach and arts-based population health intervention were undertaken to reduce HIV stigma among young people in northern Uganda. A mixed-method process evaluation aimed to examine successes and barriers to intervention implementation, contextual circumstances that may have influenced intervention outcomes, and accept…
Scoping population health equity in impact assessments
While extractive industries in Canada provide many benefits like employment, income, and education, they can also pose disproportionate physical and socio-cultural risks to population health equity for Indigenous populations. The Government of Canada established a new federal framework to review extractive industry and large infrastructure developments in 2019, with impact assessment of project proposals incorporating a 180-day planning phase and…
Advancing socio-ecological considerations in impact assessment of extractive industries
While extractive industries contribute to the Canadian economy, energy and mineral developments pose many risks and benefits to affected communities. Hundreds of active mines, and thousands of potential sites, are located in rural and remote regions; notably near Indigenous communities facing population health equity challenges. Impact assessment (IA) is the key regulatory review process for identifying and mitigating risks to socio-ecological de…
Untangling Concepts of Financial Circumstances for Public Health Professionals and Scholars
Public health discipline and practice have prioritized work on poverty and populations at high risk for material deprivation, with less consideration for the full spectrum of financial circumstances relative to well-being. Public health can make a much-needed contribution to this area, which is currently dominated by the financial industry, focused on individual behaviors, and lacking the definitional consensus needed for research and evaluation.…
Contributions and Limitations Walk Score ® in the Context of Walkability
Walkability is a critical component of built environments, yet there is still diverse conceptualization and measurement of the construct. The Walk Score ® metric is one measure of walkability, which is widely used in scholarly, industry, and public domains. With increased interest in the use of Walk Score ® as a research tool, it is necessary to examine the operationalization and scope of the measure. This scoping review examined how researchers …
Supporting healthy community decision-making in municipalities
Healthy communities encompass diverse intersecting factors that critically influence people's health. This analytic document review of Canadian toolkits sought to understand what evidence-informed resources and recommendations are currently available to support the creation and development of healthy communities. Nineteen documents published between 2006-2020 met the inclusion criteria and were reviewed. Attention was paid to key factors identifi…
An action-oriented public health framework to reduce financial strain and promote financial wellbeing in high-income countries
The Framework reveals the intersectionality of root causes and consequences of financial strain and poor financial wellbeing, while also reinforcing the need for tailored actions to promote socioeconomic and health equity for all people. The dynamic, systemic interplay of the entry points illustrated in the Framework suggest opportunities for multi-sectoral, collaborative action across government and organizations towards systems change and the p…
What counts? Adding nuance to retail food environment measurement tools in a Canadian context
Objective: Limitations of traditional geospatial measures, like the modified Retail Food Environment Index (mRFEI), are well documented. In response, we aimed to: (1) extend existing food environment measures by inductively developing subcategories to increase the granularity of healthy v . less healthy food retailers; (2) establish replicable coding processes and procedures; and (3) demonstrate how a food retailer codebook and database can be us…
Citizen science in monitoring food environments
Citizen science through the LEAF project supported the creation and application of food environment evidence: it enabled residents to collect and interpret local food environment data, develop realistic recommendations for change, and provided them with an evidence-based advocacy tool to support the implementation of these recommendations. We recommend a web application that enables independent community food environment assessments. Such a tool …
Seeing the food swamp for the weeds
Nutritional health of children and youth is an increasing cause for concern in Canada. Through food and beverage messaging in multiple environments, young people develop eating behaviours with ramifications throughout their life course. Unhealthy food retailers near schools, recreation facilities, and childcare centres-key activity settings for healthy eating promotion-present repeated, compounding exposures to commercial geomarketing. Geomarketi…
Who or what is to blame? Examining sociodemographic relationships to beliefs about causes, control, and responsibility for cancer and chronic disease prevention in Alberta, Canada
These results provide insight into the importance of health literacy, message framing, and how socio-demographic factors may impact healthy policy. Men, those with less education, and those with less income are important target groups when promoting health literacy and chronic disease prevention initiatives
Unhealthy food options in the school environment are associated with diet quality and body weights of elementary school children in Canada
Objective: Increasing evidence links unhealthy food environments with diet quality and overweight/obesity. Recent evidence has demonstrated that relative food environment measures outperform absolute measures. Few studies have examined the interplay between these two measures. We examined the separate and combined effects of the absolute and relative densities of unhealthy food outlets within 1600 m buffers around elementary schools on children’s…
Understanding urban accessibility
“Vulnerable,” “At-risk,” “Disadvantaged”
The purpose of this paper is to analyze how the problem of exclusion and the solution of inclusion have been discursively produced within A Framework for Recreation in Canada 2015: Pathways to Wellbeing.Centred around three main arguments, our analysis demonstrates the ways in which the Framework strategically combines notions of Otherness with discourses of risk and inclusion in order to target social groups that are perceived to be lacking the …
Policy-influencer perspectives on the development, adoption, and implementation of provincial school-based daily physical activity policies across Canada
These findings can inform development of future health-related polices in schools. Stakeholders can, for instance, remain attuned to the opening of political windows and capitalize on them as an opportunity to advocate for policy change or create communities of practice to enhance coordination among policy stakeholders. Future studies that explore why other jurisdictions have failed to adopt DPA policies might yield novel insights regarding lever…
A Nutrition Report Card on food environments for children and youth
Objective: In 2014, a Nutrition Report Card (NRC) was developed as a sustainable, low-cost framework to assess the healthfulness of children’s food environments and highlight action to support healthy eating. We summarise our experiences in producing, disseminating, evaluating and refining an annual NRC in a Canadian province from 2015 to 2019. Design: To produce the NRC, children’s food environment indicator data are collected, analyzed and comp…
Moving beyond ideology
The suggestion that recreation needs to reaffirm historic values has become a common narrative throughout Canada’s contemporary recreation literature. A central assumption underlying these calls is that re-establishing the field’s social liberal beliefs will highlight the negative effects of neoliberal ideology and begin the process of repositioning recreation as a public good. Recognising, however, that the impact of neoliberalism does not lie s…
The time is now for public health to lead the way on addressing financial strain in Canada
Financial strain was an issue for many Canadians long before the arrival of the global novel coronavirus pandemic in early 2020. However, it has worsened in recent months in relation to the pandemic and public health measures put in place to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Members of underserved groups and people who experience poverty are particularly vulnerable to financial strain and its negative health impacts. As public health professionals,…
Assessing general public and policy influencer support for healthy public policies to promote healthy eating at the population level in two Canadian provinces
Objective To assess and compare the favourability of healthy public policy options to promote healthy eating from the perspective of members of the general public and policy influencers in two Canadian provinces. Design The Chronic Disease Prevention Survey, administered in 2016, required participants to rank their level of support for different evidence-based policy options to promote healthy eating at the population level. Pearson’s χ 2 signifi…
Photovoice as a Method for Revealing Community Perceptions of the Built and Social Environment
Over the last number of years there has been growing interest in the use of community-based participatory research (CBPR) for preventing and controlling complex public health problems. Photovoice is one of several qualitative methods utilized in CBPR, as it is a participatory method that has community participants use photography, and stories about their photographs, to identify and represent issues of importance to them. Over the past several ye…
How community environment shapes physical activity
Key stakeholder perspectives on the development of walkable neighbourhoods
Everyday wild
Perceived community environmental influences on eating behaviors
People's perceptions of local food environments influence their abilities to eat healthily. PhotoVoice participants from four communities in Alberta, Canada took pictures of barriers and opportunities for healthy eating and shared their stories in one-on-one semi-structured interviews. Using a socioecological framework, emergent themes were organized by type and size of environment. Findings show that, while availability and access to food outlet…
Tobacco Point-of-Purchase Marketing in School Neighbourhoods and School Smoking Prevalence
The role of social geography on Lady Health Workers' mobility and effectiveness in Pakistan
The Pakistan Lady Health Worker (LHW) program provides door-step reproductive health services in a context where patriarchal norms of seclusion constrain women's access to health care facilities. The program has not achieved optimal functioning, particularly in relation to raising levels of contraceptive use. One reason may be that the LHWs face the same mobility constraints that necessitated their appointment. Past research has documented the in…
Can we get old here? seniors' perceptions of seasonal constraints of neighbourhood built environments in a northern, winter city
Populations around the world are ageing. In response, the World Health Organization (WHO) has developed initiatives to encourage cities and regions to become age‐friendly for seniors. This work examines WHO's age‐friendly domains in the context of a northern, winter city in Canada. The urban centre of Edmonton, Alberta experiences both a climate characterized by long, cold winters and a sprawling, built environment with very low population densit…
Smoke-free spaces over time
Policy diffusion is a process whereby political bodies 'learn' policy solutions to public health problems by imitating policy from similar jurisdictions. This suggests that diffusion is a critical element in the policy development process, and that its role must be recognised in any examination of policy development. Yet, to date, no systematic work on the diffusion of smoke-free spaces bylaws has been reported. We examined the diffusion of munic…
Coming to Consensus on Policy to Create Supportive Built Environments and Community Design
School Smoking Policy Characteristics and Individual Perceptions of the School Tobacco Context
The purpose of this study was to explore individual- and school-level policy characteristics on student smoking behavior using an ecological perspective. Participants were 24,213 (51% female) Grade 10-11 students from 81 schools in five Canadian provinces. Data were collected using student self-report surveys, written policies collected from schools, interviews with school administrators, and school property observations to assess multiple dimens…
Creating Neighbourhood Groupings Based on Built Environment Features to Facilitate Health Promotion Activities
Moving beyond ideology
The suggestion that recreation needs to reaffirm historic values has become a common narrative throughout Canada’s contemporary recreation literature. A central assumption underlying these calls is that re-establishing the field’s social liberal beliefs will highlight the negative effects of neoliberal ideology and begin the process of repositioning recreation as a public good. Recognising, however, that the impact of neoliberalism does not lie s…
The time is now for public health to lead the way on addressing financial strain in Canada
Financial strain was an issue for many Canadians long before the arrival of the global novel coronavirus pandemic in early 2020. However, it has worsened in recent months in relation to the pandemic and public health measures put in place to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Members of underserved groups and people who experience poverty are particularly vulnerable to financial strain and its negative health impacts. As public health professionals,…
Canadian policy perspectives on promoting physical activity across age-friendly communities
Population ageing combined with physical inactivity has critical implications for the public health of communities in the twenty-first century. In the last decade, the World Health Organization launched the age-friendly cities agenda, aiming to address population ageing through whole-systems, rights-based, health equity-focused approaches. An important intervention for age-friendly communities is modifying built environments to support population…
Why public health matters today and tomorrow
Public health is critical to a healthy, fair, and sustainable society. Realizing this vision requires imagining a public health community that can maintain its foundational core while adapting and responding to contemporary imperatives such as entrenched inequities and ecological degradation. In this commentary, we reflect on what tomorrow's public health might look like, from the point of view of our collective experiences as researchers in Cana…
Perceptions of healthy eating in four Alberta communities
School and Community Predictors of Smoking
Objectives. We identified the most effective mix of school-based policies, programs, and regional environments associated with low school smoking rates in a cohort of Canadian high schools over time. Methods. We collected a comprehensive set of student, school, and community data from a national cohort of 51 high schools in 2004 and 2007. Hierarchical linear modeling was used to predict school and community characteristics associated with school …
Examining Aspects of the Built Environment
Understanding urban accessibility
Advocacy coalition impacts on healthy public policy-oriented learning in Alberta, Canada (2009-2016)
Policy recommendations for front-of-package, shelf, and menu labelling in Canada
Active Aging
This article examines the illness and recovery experiences and perceptions of physically active middle aged and older adults participating in hiking groups. These perceptions are examined within the local milieu of their group and the larger social context of biomedical norms of healthy older bodies. Discourse on the body was viewed through the lens of medical anthropology and data were analyzed using embodied ethnography. There were 15 participa…
Walkable by Willpower”
Students’ Perspective of the CES Case Competition
The Case Competition is open to university students (undergraduate and graduate) across Canada. Teams of three to five students, from any discipline, analyze an evaluation case and present their findings to a panel of judges. The competition consists of two rounds — the preliminary and the final. The preliminary round takes place at each team’s home university. The teams are presented with an evaluation case and asked to address specific issues. …
Smoke-free spaces over time
Policy diffusion is a process whereby political bodies 'learn' policy solutions to public health problems by imitating policy from similar jurisdictions. This suggests that diffusion is a critical element in the policy development process, and that its role must be recognised in any examination of policy development. Yet, to date, no systematic work on the diffusion of smoke-free spaces bylaws has been reported. We examined the diffusion of munic…
Tobacco Point-of-Purchase Marketing in School Neighbourhoods and School Smoking Prevalence
Key stakeholder perspectives on the development of walkable neighbourhoods
School Smoking Policy Characteristics and Individual Perceptions of the School Tobacco Context
The purpose of this study was to explore individual- and school-level policy characteristics on student smoking behavior using an ecological perspective. Participants were 24,213 (51% female) Grade 10-11 students from 81 schools in five Canadian provinces. Data were collected using student self-report surveys, written policies collected from schools, interviews with school administrators, and school property observations to assess multiple dimens…
Walkable by Willpower”
Photovoice as a Method for Revealing Community Perceptions of the Built and Social Environment
Over the last number of years there has been growing interest in the use of community-based participatory research (CBPR) for preventing and controlling complex public health problems. Photovoice is one of several qualitative methods utilized in CBPR, as it is a participatory method that has community participants use photography, and stories about their photographs, to identify and represent issues of importance to them. Over the past several ye…
The Association Between Community Stressors and Asthma Prevalence of School Children in Winnipeg, Canada
It is generally surmised that community stressors have an incubating effect for a variety of diagnoses on maternal and child health. This is of public health significance, as children of mothers facing long-term distress were found to have a 60% higher risk for asthma diagnosis at age 7 in Manitoba, Canada. Our objective was to determine the association of community stressors with childhood asthma prevalence in Winnipeg, Canada from participants …
Can we get old here? seniors' perceptions of seasonal constraints of neighbourhood built environments in a northern, winter city
Populations around the world are ageing. In response, the World Health Organization (WHO) has developed initiatives to encourage cities and regions to become age‐friendly for seniors. This work examines WHO's age‐friendly domains in the context of a northern, winter city in Canada. The urban centre of Edmonton, Alberta experiences both a climate characterized by long, cold winters and a sprawling, built environment with very low population densit…
Creating Neighbourhood Groupings Based on Built Environment Features to Facilitate Health Promotion Activities
Examining Aspects of the Built Environment
Coming to Consensus on Policy to Create Supportive Built Environments and Community Design
Community Health and the Built Environment
The Community Health and the Built Environment (CHBE) project investigated the role of place in interventions for chronic disease prevention in order to identify contextual factors that may foster or inhibit intervention success. This paper presents a project model comprising objective-outsider and subjective-insider perspectives in a multi-method, community-based participatory research approach with an emphasis on knowledge exchange. The collabo…
Adjusting Divergences between Self-reported and Measured Height and Weight in an Adult Canadian Population
We advocate the use of our correction equation whenever dealing with self-reported height and weight from telephone surveys to avoid potential distortions in estimating obesity prevalence
School and Community Predictors of Smoking
Objectives. We identified the most effective mix of school-based policies, programs, and regional environments associated with low school smoking rates in a cohort of Canadian high schools over time. Methods. We collected a comprehensive set of student, school, and community data from a national cohort of 51 high schools in 2004 and 2007. Hierarchical linear modeling was used to predict school and community characteristics associated with school …
The role of social geography on Lady Health Workers' mobility and effectiveness in Pakistan
The Pakistan Lady Health Worker (LHW) program provides door-step reproductive health services in a context where patriarchal norms of seclusion constrain women's access to health care facilities. The program has not achieved optimal functioning, particularly in relation to raising levels of contraceptive use. One reason may be that the LHWs face the same mobility constraints that necessitated their appointment. Past research has documented the in…
Active Aging
This article examines the illness and recovery experiences and perceptions of physically active middle aged and older adults participating in hiking groups. These perceptions are examined within the local milieu of their group and the larger social context of biomedical norms of healthy older bodies. Discourse on the body was viewed through the lens of medical anthropology and data were analyzed using embodied ethnography. There were 15 participa…
Exploring the process of capacity-building among community-based health promotion workers in Alberta, Canada
Community capacity-building is a central element to health promotion. While capacity-building features, domains and relationships to program sustainability have been well examined, information on the process of capacity-building as experienced by practitioners is needed. This study examined this process as experienced by coordinators working within a community-based chronic disease prevention project implemented in four communities in Alberta (Ca…
Understanding Older Adults’ Usage of Community Green Spaces in Taipei, Taiwan
As the world's population ages, there is an increasing need for community environments to support physical activity and social connections for older adults. This exploratory study sought to better understand older adults' usage and perceptions of community green spaces in Taipei, Taiwan, through direct observations of seven green spaces and nineteen structured interviews. Descriptive statistics from observations using the System for Observing Pla…
Relating Built Environment to Physical Activity
The Irvine-Minnesota Inventory (IMI) is an audit tool used to record properties of built environments. It was designed to explore the relationships between environmental features and physical activity. As published, the IMI does not provide scoring to support this use. Two papers have since been published recommending methods to form scales from IMI items. This study examined these scoring procedures in new settings. IMI data were collected in tw…
How community environment shapes physical activity
Perceptions of healthy eating in four Alberta communities
Impact of a 3-year multi-centre community-based intervention on risk factors for chronic disease and obesity among free-living adults
Findings suggest HAC succeeded in shifting the population distribution of BP in a leftward direction. By contrast, anthropometric parameters remained unchanged or worsened within intervention communities. Therefore, while improvements in some clinical risk factors can be achieved through relatively diffuse and shorter-term community-level environmental changes, improvements in others may require interventions of greater intensity and duration. Ev…
Perceived community environmental influences on eating behaviors
People's perceptions of local food environments influence their abilities to eat healthily. PhotoVoice participants from four communities in Alberta, Canada took pictures of barriers and opportunities for healthy eating and shared their stories in one-on-one semi-structured interviews. Using a socioecological framework, emergent themes were organized by type and size of environment. Findings show that, while availability and access to food outlet…
Universal Design for the rural walks of life
Many Canadians have low levels of physical activity, including walking. One public health response is to improve opportunities for walking, or walkability, by changing community built environments. While urban walkability research is expanding, it does not readily apply to smaller, rural communities, leaving a significant knowledge gap. This participatory research project operationalized rural walkability using Universal Design principles to prom…
Medicine (40 obras) · Political science (32 obras) · Geography (24 obras) · Psychology (24 obras) · Sociology (22 obras) · Environmental health (21 obras) · Business (20 obras) · Public health (20 obras) · Public relations (18 obras) · Urban Transport and Accessibility (16 obras)