University News

Bishop’s Awarded Grant to Study Access to Health Care in English in the Eastern Townships

August 3, 2010

August 3, 2010, Sherbrooke QC— How easy is it for an Anglophone Townshipper to find an English-speaking doctor or psychologist? Do health information campaigns and preventive measures manage to reach the Anglophone population in a mostly Francophone area? How do these potential problems impact the physical and mental health of the Anglophone population?

A multidisciplinary team of nine researchers from Bishop’s University and Université de Sherbrooke will study these questions. The team has been awarded $100,000 by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) to evaluate access to health care services in English across the Eastern Townships. They will also analyze the impact and consequences on the physical and mental health of the Anglophone population of the area.

“Members of linguistic minorities are more likely to delay seeking medical attention, more likely to misunderstand diagnosis and treatment options, and more likely to be stressed if their relationships with the medical establishment are inadequate,” says Dr. Estelle Chamoux, lead researcher on the project, from the Department of Biological Sciences at Bishop’s University. “These factors may have an impact on the mental and physical health of our English-speaking community. We need to better understand their situation.”

Psychological Health & Well-Being has been identified as a strategic research theme at Bishop’s and the University is determined to support research that will directly benefit the local and regional community. This first-ever CIHR grant will allow researchers to develop methods that could be used to study the health of linguistic minorities elsewhere in the country and around the world.

This seed grant awarded by the CHIR is meant to open an important but unexplored field in health research. Over the next year, the researchers and their students will collect data from both the French and English populations, as well as from health care professionals, to provide a clear portrait of the current situation. Results emerging from this study will likely help health institutions and their governing bodies to better target their actions towards the linguistic minorities and lead to positive measures for all residents of the Eastern Townships.

 “I find it meaningful that researchers from Bishop’s and Université de Sherbrooke, English and French, and from a variety of disciplines, have united their strength towards a common goal,” stated Bishop’s Principal Michael Goldbloom. “It is representative of the strong collaboration that exists between the two universities and populations of our region.”

-30-