Mental health — Blog — Sage Perspectives Blog

Bridging Arts and Public Health: A New Framework for Collaboration

Imagine a doctor prescribing a music class to manage chronic pain, or a public health campaign using theater to address mental health stigma. These scenarios are increasingly common as the links among arts, culture, and public health expand. At the same time, in conversations with public health professionals over the years, I've encountered a paradox: While there's clear interest in art's potential to enhance public health, many struggle to translate that interest into action. The sheer breadth of “arts and culture” makes it challenging to get concrete and specific about its applications to health goals. The public health and arts sectors have both needed structure and direction to guide more cross-sector action and innovation.

ResearchWehida NiaziSeptember 13, 2024music, Mental health, public health

Traumatic brain injury in women: Time to think about mental health before a pregnancy

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a common cause of disability, affecting about 2.5% of North Americans. Although one-third of people with TBI are female, most TBI research is focused on high-risk groups that are primarily male, like veterans and professional athletes. This means that the consequences of TBI most relevant to women and those assigned female at birth, like the impact of TBI on mental health around the time of pregnancy, have received little attention.

ResearchWehida NiaziMay 16, 2024Mental health, pregnancy, brain injury

Brief mental health support for Ontario healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic

Remember the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic? Businesses shut down, we were told to stay away from other humans, and people were dying from a disease we did not know or understand. Now imagine that on top of that, you were a healthcare worker (HCW). You perhaps worked in a hospital – one of the businesses that did not shut down, maybe even directly with patients infected with COVID-19. Vaccines to protect against COVID-19 did not exist, personal protective equipment was not always available, you could not access your coping strategies the way you normally would, and you were working long hours, with increased possibility of getting COVID-19 yourself. Would that have impacted your mental health?

Editor's Picks, ResearchMoazzma ArshadApril 25, 2024Mental health, COVID-19

Are Functional Disorders Driven By Underlying Psychological Distress?

An intriguing discussion is going on in one corner of the world of clinical neuropsychiatry that has implications that are important for how a very common group of disorders are understood and, therefore, treated. ‘Functional disorders’ are conditions where physical symptoms and signs, after very thorough assessment, cannot be attributed to a general medical condition. Individuals with these conditions make up about 22% of all people presenting for primary medical care, and over 30% in some neurology clinics. The matter of debate is whether we know enough to attribute causation of these conditions to underlying psychological distress, or whether we should take an agnostic approach to causation.

ResearchWehida NiaziApril 25, 2024psychology, neurology, Mental health

Working with Farm Animals as A Therapeutic Intervention for People with Mental and Physical Disorders

Every spring we take duck eggs from our farm to the local farmers market. One of our ducks usually accompanies us at those trips and greets customers sitting in the wicker basket. While people react very cheerfully to our duck’s presence, one time it was a rather unusual reaction: a young woman teared up when she saw the duck sitting in her basket. When I asked her what was wrong, she answered, smiling through tears, “she made me feel so good just sitting here and preening her feathers, so I cried because she is so sweet...”

ResearchWehida NiaziApril 19, 2024AATF, Animals, Therapy, Mental health

The Impact of Sports Participation for the Marginalized during the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic was an unprecedented global event that required swift and extraordinary actions to protect people from this new disease. These actions impacted the everyday lived experience of people around the globe. In the United States, an emphasis was placed on reducing human contact by canceling in-person events, transitioning to online school instruction, and requiring mask wearing when social contact was necessary. Therefore, our study sought to determine how sport participation impacted youth health for different populations of adolescents.