2021 Special Populations Flashcards
List the 5 most common health conditions identified in incoming inmates?
- head injuries (34% of incoming inmates),
- mental illness,
- back pain
- asthma
- HCV
- TB
- HIV
What is the Healthy Immigrant Effect?
- immigrants initially have better health than their native-born counterparts in the settlement society,
- is lost as their residence lengthens
- worse for adults than children
List 4 Mandatory age-specific laboratory and radiologic tests in the Immigration Medical Exam?
Mandatory age-specific laboratory and radiologic tests include:
- Urinalysis – clients ≥ 5 years
- Chest x-ray (postero-anterior view) – clients ≥ 11 years
- Syphilis – clients ≥ 15 years
- HIV – clients ≥ 15 years
List 5 tests that asymptomatic refugees would be screened for?
- CBC
- Hepatitis B
- Hepatitis C
- Syphilis
- HIV
- Varicella serology (over 13 years old)
- Stool for enteric parasites
- Serology for schistosomiasis and strongyloides
- Urinalysis
- Lead levels in children (<7 years old)
- Mantoux tests
- Immunizations
- Cancer screening including PAP testing
What are the top four most common disability types?
- Pain related (15%)
- Flexibility (10%)
- Mobility (10%)
- Mental Health (7%)
Which age group is most affected by disability?

List 5 examples of how we could accomodate disabilities within public health programs to enhance accessibility
- Providing telephone teletype lines for individuals who are Deaf or hard-of-hearing
- Ensuring space is physically accessible (e.g., ramps, snow removal, curb cuts)
- Waiving fees for support persons
- Following web accessibility guidelines
- Posting disruptions to elevator service as far in advance as possible
List 5 specific health outcomes associated with
homelessness
- increased risk of tuberculosis (due to alcoholism, poor nutritional status and AIDS, crowding in shelters, inadequate ventilation, large transient population)
- Injuries
- Poor mental health including substance use disorders; cognitive impairments
- Poor Oral and dental health
- Inadequate control of hypertension and diabetes (Many homeless people do not have a health card, are unable to keep/make appointments, or lack continuity of care due to transience)
List 5 Public Health interventions that could be targeted to address homelessness
- Monitoring and surveillance of health outcomes of individuals experiencing homelessness
- Case management (for psychiatric patients, assertive community treatment)
- Housing first: Strategy for addressing homelessness that provides housing without requiring individuals to engage with services or find a job first; improves health outcomes and reduces involvement with justice and healthcare system
- Poverty reduction / income support
- Affordable housing
- Eviction prevention
- Institutional transition support (housing on discharge)
- Employment opportunities for low-skilled workers
- Primary prevention: Anti-violence interventions, early childhood interventions
Name three significant determinants of positive mental health and wellbeing in the LGBTQ-TS group
- social inclusion
- freedom from discrimination and violence
- access to economic resources
List 3 LGBTQIA2 behaviours that could lead to poor health outcomes?
- Stress (isolation, alienation due to discrimination from a homophobic society)
- Substance abuse (use of alcohol, tobacco and other substances may be 2 to 4 times higher among LGBTQIA2 people than heterosexual people)
- Smoking (higher rates of smoking among LGBTQIA2 adults (36%) than other adults (17%))
List 3 Lesbian health outcomes
- prevalence of asthma is 16% among lesbian and bisexual women, compared with 9% among heterosexual women.
- Bisexual and lesbian individuals are more likely to suffer from arthritis than their heterosexual counterparts.
- Lesbian women are more likely to be overweight/obese
- Lesbian women use preventive healthcare services less than heterosexual women
- Higher risk:
- DM II
- coronary heart disease
- Stroke
- Osteoarthritis
- Breast cancer
- colon cancer
List 3 health outcomes for MSM (Men who have sex with men)
- HIV rates are higher (MSM represent 2% of the population, yet 61% of all new HIV infections in 2009 were among MSM)
- HPV and HPV-related anal cancers are higher
- Other STIs
- Syphilis
- Chlamydia
- Gonorrhea
HIV/long-term antiretroviral therapy risk factor for:
- Cardiovascular disease
- Stroke
- Myocardial infarction
- Peripheral artery disease
- Chronic heart failure
List 5 barriers Transgender patients experience when accessing health care
- Discrimination by healthcare providers major deterrent to accessing healthcare
- denied care
- Primary care providers often lack knowledge on how to care for this population
- financial barriers (lack of insurance, lack of income),
- lack of cultural competence by health care providers,
- health systems barriers (inappropriate electronic records, forms, lab references, clinic facilities)
- socioeconomic barriers (transportation, housing, mental health)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4802845/#:~:text=The%20biggest%20barrier%20to%20health,systems%20barriers%20and%20socioeconomic%20barriers.
What are 3 health outcomes Transgender people have?
Mental health conditions including Suicide, self harm, depression, anxiety disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder, schizophrenia, and other psychotic disorders
List 4 types of homelessness
- Chronic homelessness: Individuals who are currently homeless and have been homeless for > 6 months in the last 12 months (i.e., 180 cumulative nights in a shelter or place not fit for human habitation)
- Episodic homelessness: Individuals who have experienced 3 or more episodes of homelessness in the last 12 months
- Transitional homelessness: Housed in supportive, but temporary, shelter
- Roofless: Homeless and living outside
List 3 domains that homelessness is experienced in
- Physical domain: Lack of a place to live fit for habitation
- Legal domain: Lack of legal title or security of tenure
- Social domain: Lack of private, safe space (e.g., social isolation)
What are the Risk factors for homelessness?
- Adverse childhood experiences
- Criminal justice system experiences
- Mental illness and substance use
- Marital breakdown / intimate partner violence
- Institutionalization (health care, child protection, jail)
- Housing unaffordability
- Indigenous (28-34% of the shelter pop is Indigenous)
What is the Impact of homelessness on health care use?
- Prioritizing seeking food and shelter above medical care
- Difficulty adhering to medication regimens (e.g., due to lack of storage space, unable to regularly take with food, limited access to clean water, limited access to toilets for GI side effects)
- Difficulty obtaining a health card without an address
- Difficulty accessing medical services without a health card
- Difficulty booking appointments (no address or return phone number)
- Difficulty receiving coordinated healthcare (medical records stored in several
- locations)
- Personal appearance and or personal hygiene that may be alarming to some working in or utilizing health care services
- Difficulty paying for prescriptions and items not covered by the province
- Challenges to recuperation following treatment due to a lack of caregivers and space to recuperate
List the Health outcomes associated with homelessness
- Health outcomes associated with homelessness:
- Cardiovascular disease
- Mental illness and substance use
- Injuries, including traumatic brain injury (unintentional, intentional, and self-harm)
- Hypothermia / frostbite
- Tuberculosis
- Hepatitis B and C
- HIV
- Scabies
- Body lice
- Bartonella quintana (“urban trench fever”; documented in US and France)
List 5 Public Health Roles for Racial Health Equity
- BUILD CAPACITY to analyze and act on the structural forces that drive racial inequities.
- CREATE KNOWLEDGE: by assessing and reporting on the impact of racialization and racism including analyzing health outcomes utilizing an anti-racism lens, and measuring racism on both individual and structural levels
- Modify and re-orient public health and social INTERVENTIONS to ensure that they are designed to reduce and eliminate racialized health inequities.
- Develop POLICIES with an overt focus on tackling racism including implementing racial equity assessments (e.g. support anti-discrimination policies)
- Develop PARTNERSHIPS with other sectors and communities that work on racial equity to shift cultural and societal values and norms and create substantive change in the lives of racialized peoples.
List 6 pathways in which racism can harm health?
- (1) economic and social deprivation;
- (2) toxic substances and hazardous conditions;
- (3)discrimination and other forms of socially inflicted trauma (mental physical, and sexual, directly experienced or witnessed, from verbal threats to violent acts;
- (4) targeted marketing of harmful commodities (e.g., “junk” food and psychoactive substances such as , tobacco, alcohol and other licit and illicit drugs); and
- (5) inadequate or degrading medical care; and,
- (6) degradation of ecosystems, including as linked to systematic alienation of Indigenous populations from their lands and corresponding traditional economies
List 5 ways that culture can affect health outcomes?
- Positive or negative lifestyle behaviours.
- Health beliefs and attitudes. These include what a person views as illness that requires treatment, and which treatments and preventive measures he or she will accept, as with the Jehovah’s Witness prohibition on using whole blood products.
- Reactions to being sick. A person’s adoption of the sick role (and, hence, how he or she or he reacts to being sick) is often guided by his or her cultural roots. For instance, “machismo” may discourage a man from seeking prompt medical attention, and culture may also influence from whom a person will accept advice.
- Communication patterns, including language and modes of thinking. Beyond these, however, culture may constrain some patients from expressing an opinion to the doctor, or may discourage a wife from speaking freely in front of her husband, for example. Such influences can complicate efforts to establish a therapeutic relationship and, thereby, to help the patient.
- Status. The way in which one culture views another may affect the status of entire groups of people, placing them at a disadvantage. The resulting social inequality or even exclusion forms a health determinant. For example, women in some societies have little power to insist on condom use
List 5 strategies for clinicians to provide culturally safe care to Indigenous patients during the pandemic
- Raise awareness for clinicians that past traumatic experiences may overwhelm and challenge individual’s ability to cope
- Create/advocate for culturally safe community based testing and isolation sites
- Build trusting relationships with communities, families and patients
- Clearly explain what information is being collected and why for test results, contact tracing etc. and who it is shared with and if they would like their information shared with anyone else e.g. family member
- Provide and offer solutions and interventions that take into account local context and access to resources

