|
As a measure of the quality of our faculty, three "Fulbright Awards" have been awarded for PSU faculty (Mark Kaplan, Community Health; Sharon Lee, Sociology; Jack Corbett, Urban and Public Affairs) to conduct studies and research in Canada.
Fulbright Program
Canada-U.S. Fulbright Research Project
January-June 2004: Sharon M. Lee, Sociology
My Fulbright project was a comparative examination of the social integration of Asians in Canada and the United States. In recent decades, the Asian populations in both countries have grown rapidly, largely because of the "new immigration", which refers to large-scale immigration of non-Europeans to North America from the late 1960s on. People of Asian descent are now the largest ethnic minority in Canada and make up about 10 percent of Canada's population of thirty million in 2001. In the United States, Asians are about 4 percent of the total population and are the second fastest growing minority in the United States after Hispanics. I collaborated with a sociologist at the University of Toronto to study racial/ethnic intermarriage among Asians as an indicator of social integration. Iintermarriage is significant in studying social integration of ethnic groups because when people intermarry, they cross racial/ethnic boundaries to form multi-ethnic/racial marriages and families. We analyzed 2001 Canadian and 2000 U.S. census data. We found that most Asians marry within their racial/ethnic group, but intermarriage is an established marriage option in both countries. One in three marriages involving Asian Americans is an intermarriage. Intermarriage among Asians in Canada is less common, at about half the rate of the U.S. rate. Given the diversity of the Asian populations, it is not surprising that for some Asian ethnic groups, such as native-born Japanese and Filipino Americans and Canadians, and Korean Americans, over half of married couples from these groups are intermarried while other groups such as Asian Indians or South Asians and Chinese have lower intermarriage rates. In both countries, the effects of age, gender, nativity, and education are remarkably similar: younger, native-born, better-educated, and
Note on Presentation of Project's Findings:
I will be presenting a paper based on my Fulbright Project at the annual meeting of the Population Association of America, March 31-April 2, 2005, Philadelphia (co-authored with Monica Boyd, University of Toronto). For details of the conference and paper, go to www.popassoc.org/meetings.html.
Canada-U.S. Fulbright Research Project
Mark Kaplan, Public Health
When most Americans think of Canada's contribution to the public health sector, invariably what crosses their mind is the publicly financed, universal, portable, single-payer system known as Medicare. Less well known abroad, however, is the Canadian contribution to the evolving paradigm in public health called the population health perspective. With its focus on the nonmedical determinants of health, the paradigm looks beyond the public provision of health care per se in an effort to address the burden of excess morbidity and mortality at the population level. It has been suggested that the population health perspective (conceived of in the widest sense, including psychological, social, and physical elements) is a "made in Canada term." As a Fulbright Scholar based at the University of Ottawa Institute of Population Health, my study, "the Canadian approach to population: underlying philosophies and practices," focused on the federal and provincial legislative initiatives and institutions that have been created with the intent to advance the basic tenants of the population health perspective.
Biography
Article: Myths and Realities of Canadian Medicare
|
