The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly impacted people’s lives around the world. Evidence from the early months of the pandemic indicates increased psychological distress among the public. Older adults face heightened health risks in the pandemic and may be especially susceptible to its negative psychosocial impacts. The impact of isolation due to home-confinement measures is particularly concerning for older adults. As such, a sub-group within the older adult population warrants special attention in the context of this pandemic—those living alone. Given the unprecedented scale of the COVID-19 pandemic, extant literature on the psychological impact of smaller-scale epidemics likely provides only a glimpse into its potential impact. As such, this research was an exploratory phenomenological inquiry on the lived experience of older adults living alone in the COVID-19 pandemic. van Manen’s (2016) approach to hermeneutic phenomenological research guided the data collection and analysis. In-depth interviews were conducted with 12 retired older adults (aged 65 and over) living alone in British Columbia, Canada between mid-July to early August 2020. Through thematic analysis, the phenomenon of living in the initial 4 months of the pandemic for older adults living alone was found to be evolving and multi-faceted. The multiple facets of the phenomenon were captured by 5 core themes: 1) Confronting a mysterious threat; 2) Shrinking existence; 3) Navigating a new world; 4) Recognizing older adult identity in society; and 5) Adjusting to the new normal. These core themes spoke to an experience marked by emotional distress, loss and isolation, change, ageing, and resilience. This research adds to the expanding literature on the psychosocial impacts of the pandemic by providing a rich, descriptive portrayal of the lived experience in the pandemic. Importantly, this work focused on older adults living alone, likely an overlooked group in current literature.

Science and technology are an inherent part of political decision making in modern times. How do decision makers balance legitimacy, power and knowledge? Existing literature on the issue only focuses on liberal democracies and neglects authoritarian regimes in both theoretic and empirical investigations. In particular, it cannot answer how authoritarian regimes respond to challenges in governance, particularly ones rising from technically complex and uncertain policy fields such as biodiversity conservation and climate change. My research addresses this issue by investigating how scientifically complex international environmental norms are filtered through the systems of expert consultation and public contestation in an authoritarian political system. Drawing on 150 semi-structured interviews conducted between 2015-2019, my dissertation examines the policy processes in China’s nature conservation and biosafety regulation, and seeks to explain how the authoritarian state significantly strengthened biodiversity conservation in these two issue areas while the developmental and vested interests were stacked against them. Building on Jurgen Habermas’ three normative models, I first propose a typology of authoritarian policy decision-making at the science-politics interface, including authoritarian decisionist, technocratic, and public contested models. While all three models are present in China’s biodiversity governance, a “state-corporatist technocracy” model stands out as a more routine type of consultative decision making that often boils down to a bureaucratic-scientist alliance against environmental norms. I argue that two factors—the political salience and knowledge-based collective actors—are key to overcome this problem for the successful diffusion of environmental norms. In particular, I find that an emerging domestic epistemic community in protected areas and a knowledge-intense proxy civil society at the state-society nexus in biosafety regulation play critical roles in the norm contestation. Using a modified Multiple Stream Framework in the former and drawing on social movement theories in the latter, I identify how strategic trade concerns and changes in the party’s leadership raised the political salience, enabling the collective idea agency to shape policy.

Climate change and variation, and rising demand for freshwater increasingly impact water security for humans, ecosystems, and integrated social-ecological systems. In the rural global South, diverse water-related risks interact with systemic inequalities to unevenly impact the assets, capabilities, and activities underpinning resource-based livelihoods. As such, livelihood water security – whether and to what extent people can avoid unacceptable risks, meet context-specific needs, and achieve self-defined aspirations – is critical for disadvantaged groups, without which they may experience pronounced impacts to their food and income security. This challenge has revealed significant research gaps in how rural livelihood water security concerns are conceptualized, studied, and addressed in local and regional contexts, including whether and to what extent equity and sustainability objectives and outcomes are reflected and achieved in water security approaches. In response, this dissertation i) undertakes a systematic scoping review of the English-language refereed scholarship to ascertain how water security for rural livelihoods in global South contexts is conceptualized and addressed; ii) conducts an empirical and multi-village analysis of the equity and sustainability effects associated with an over $1B USD water security program (“Jalyukt Shivar Abhiyan”) in Maharashtra state, India, intended to transform villages and agricultural livelihoods into “drought-free” systems; and iii) develops an integrative methodological and epistemological approach to analyze dynamics affecting the distribution of livelihood water security initiatives at larger policy-relevant scales. This dissertation was informed by an extensive review of scholarly research; ninety-four (94) interviews, including individual and focus-group meetings with key informants, and households in three drought-prone villages; and statistical analyses of secondary climate, agricultural, demographic, and water security project data in Maharashtra. It advances knowledge of how water (in)security for rural livelihoods is conceptualized, analyzed, and addressed in both scholarly and applied contexts in the global South, stresses the importance of advancing water security in holistic, widespread, and long-term ways, and identifies key considerations to support this approach.

Opioids have served as a dual-purpose substance throughout the human history. While they are listed as an essential medicine by the World Health Organization, on account of their effectiveness at treating pain, their harmful use also leaves a significant burden on societies. Among treatments developed to address the latter, opioid substitution treatment (OST) is a very well-documented and evidence-based treatment, which has shown to improve a multitude of treatment outcomes for patients with opioid dependence. Besides well-established medicines for OST, such as methadone and buprenorphine, opium tincture (OT), a hydro alcoholic preparation of opium, is used for this purpose on a large scale in Iran. The first step of this thesis, which was a systematic review, (2014 - 2016) did not find adequate evidence to make a conclusive recommendation about the safety and efficacy of OT for OST. Following this review, a non- inferiority randomized clinical trial (opium trial) with 204 participants and a 12-week follow-up period, compared the safety and efficacy of OT with methadone in treatment of opioid dependence. A comparison of international samples with participants of opium trial at baseline revealed that patterns of substance use and related risk behaviors differed significantly between Iran and other regions of the world, a factor which needs to be considered when generalizing the findings of the opium trial. Next, the comparison of outcomes between the two arms showed that OT was a clinically effective medication and that OT was more effective than methadone at reducing participants’ opioid use outside of treatment; however, the study could not conclude whether or not OT was non-inferior to methadone at retaining participants in treatment. The number of people with AEs (adverse events) were not significantly different between the two groups. There was no serious adverse event in the OT arm and one in the methadone arm. Substitution treatment with OT has expanded in Iran since its introduction and the results of this trial show potential for its further use. OT can serve as a culturally acceptable and widely available medication for OST, diversifying the treatment options for this condition.

This infographic is based on the following article : Goodman, A. (2019). Digital storytelling with heroin users in Vancouver. International Quarterly of Community Health Education, Vol. 39(2). 75-89. This undergraduate student work is a product of a collaboration between the Making Research Accessible initiative (MRAi), researchers, Dr. Evan Mauro and the students of ASTU 100 at UBC. This student work has been reviewed by the lead author of the original item. Revisions provided by the lead author have been incorporated into the student work with support from the UBC Learning Exchange and members of the MRAi. The reader should bear in mind that this is a student research report and is not an official document of UBC.

In this qualitative study, Babu explores a topic that isn’t often studied, but certainly has pervasive impact on the lives of the diaspora – diasporic guilt. When bad things happen “back home,” diasporic communities invariable feel helpless, not knowing what to do or how to help make things better. How do we support our people when we’re so far away? We have privilege in being able to be away from all the bad things; but how should we use it? Babu interviews several individuals to get their thoughts on their respective experiences with things happening “back home.” With increased migration over time, such questions will only become even more important predictors of diasporic wellbeing. Where do diaspora find support, and how do we assuage such helplessness when turmoil hits home?

The Einstein Equivalence Principle (EEP) has never been directly examined with an antimatter test body. To address this, ALPHA is planning to measure the Earth’s gravitational field using antihydrogen atoms as test masses. The experiment calls for the careful release of antiatoms from a magnetic trap and requires precise characterization of the magnetic fields that are used. This thesis considers the need for magnetic field characterization from the perspective of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) as a magnetic sensing technique. A variety of theories from statistics and condensed matter physics are assembled into a framework for understanding and predicting the performance of solid-state NMR magnetometers. This framework is applied to two types of NMR sensors that were developed for ALPHA’s gravity experiments. Data acquired while commissioning the apparatus provide experimental confirmation of the theoretical precision predicted for each sensor type. A room temperature sensor based on ¹H NMR in natural rubber exhibits a precision of about 270 nT at 1 T. A cryogenic sensor based on ²⁷Al NMR in microparticulate aluminium displays a precision of about 34 µT at 25 K and 1 T. These NMR data are then used to estimate the experimental constraint that should result from upcoming measurements of the gravitational field (g¯) experienced by antihydrogen atoms in the lab. Improvements to the expected constraint on g¯ are sought through advances in state-of-the-art solid-state NMR magnetometry. A broad survey of candidate materials has been conducted in search of NMR samples that promise better precision at low temperature. Yttrium-bismuth is proposed as a sample with the potential to improve sensor precision by a factor of ∼7 over the use of aluminium. Further gains in performance are predicted through the introduction of broadband (or “delay line”) probes. A brief review and assessment of these probes is presented.

This report is a summary of the project “Assessment of Barriers Contributing to Presentation of Breast Cancer Patients in Jamaica” conducted Feb 2020 – Mar 2020. Study overview, initiation, and conduct are described, along with observed cultural context and its interplay with the project. Immediate impact of the study and opinions on any future research engagements are also summarized.