Health and Home

Annotated bibliography written by a student for the course "Visual Anthropology", taught by Dara Culhane, SFU. Summaries and critical discussions of texts published between 1990 and 1997, in the area of visual anthropology, are provided. Texts discussed include The Paper Canoe by Barbra Eugenio and books which are collections of essays on the issues of power, representation, gender and eurocentrism in theatre, film, and other performance media.

Brief news article from 2003, describing a document leaked by the BC Ministry of Human Resources office. This document finally made public the large number of people who have been on welfare for 13 months or more and between 7 and 12 months. These numbers, the author argues, are cause for great concern given the recent introduction of a two-year time limit for receiving welfare. Almost 30,000 people will soon be cut off from their assistance and forced onto the streets. The author argues that British Columbians should be outraged by the new welfare time limit because it is not only morally bankrupt but is going to contribute to more homelessness and costs for society in the long-run.

A report providing information on the progress being made to address the epidemic of death and disease resulting from injection drug use in British Columbia. Progress in this area is considered in light of the Provincial Health Goals set by the Minister of Health in March 1998. The epidemiology of drug use, and drug-related disease and mortality is summarized for British Columbia, Vancouver, and by individual health regions. Recommendations are provided on measures that should be taken to continue to pursue the Provincial Health Goals related to illicit drugs. These include improving the organization and access levels to addiction services; the provision of child care, mental health services, and housing; the use of a harm reduction approach; and instituting a drug court program. The report argues "the business case" for expanding addiction services, in terms of why it is more economically prudent to provide methadone therapy, detox and rehab services than for government and taxpayers to "pay later" for the care of IDU who have contracted disease due to lack of access to services.

A memo written to the Vancouver/Richmond Health Board from the Health Planning committee. It recommends that the Board continue to take up a harm reduction approach in its HIV prevention and substance use interventions. The memo defines harm reduction and the three main strategies of a harm reduction approach to reducing the spread of HIV/AIDS in Vancouver (prevent transmission through needle exchanges and providing condoms for safer sex; increasing access to testing and care; reducing the number of used and discarded needles in the community). The memo also underscores the importance of developing a community consensus on harm reduction. This is because there are conflicts between harm reduction approaches in health programming and the approaches of police and child welfare services (whose mandates are to intervene if parents / citizens are found with injection drugs).