FASD Prevention and Social Determinants of Women’s Health: Assessing the Evidence

Banff River. Image by Nav A., via flickr

This year’s Banff International Conference on Behavioural Science is on “Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder: Challenges in Practice, Research and Policy.” The conference is being held March 18-21, 2012 and prevention will be one of the key areas of focus.

NAT members Dorothy Badry (University of Calgary) and Amy Salmon (Sheway, Vancouver) will be presenting on Monday afternoon on FASD Prevention and Social Determinants of Women’s Health: Assessing the Evidence and again on Wednesday afternoon on Community-based Approaches to FASD Prevention: Examples from Front-Line Practice. Their workshops will cover issues such as:

• What is the current state of evidence for FASD prevention efforts addressing social determinants of women’s health?
• How do social determinants of health increase or mitigate risk for FASD in alcohol-exposed pregnancies?
• How to address practical challenges to implementing evidence-based approaches to FASD prevention education and programming at the community level
• An introduction to three different programs: the Sheway Project in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside; the Brightening Our Homefires Project in four Dene and Inuit communities in the Northwest Territories; and birth mother mentoring and advocacy programs in southern Alberta.

If you’re interested in learning more about the work that Dorothy and Amy are involved with, I’ve listed some resources and links below.

Learn more

Bell, K., McNaughton, D., and Salmon,  A. (2009). Medicine, morality and mothering: public health discourses on foetal alcohol exposure, smoking around children and childhood overnutrition. Critical Public Health, 19(2).DOI: 10.1080/09581590802385664

Brochure: SHEWAY: A Community Project for Women and Children

FASD Network Action Team on FASD Prevention from a Women’s Health Determinants Perspective. (2010). 10 Fundamental components of FASD prevention from a women’s health determinants perspective.

FASD Network Action Team on FASD Prevention from a Women’s Health Determinants Perspective . (2009). Taking a relational approach: the importance of timely and supportive connections for women.

Marshall, S.K., Charles, G., Hare, J., Ponzetti, J.J., and Stokl, M. (2005). Sheway’s services for substance using pregnant and parenting women: evaluating the outcomes for infants. Canadian Journal of Community Mental Health, 24(1): 19-33.

Poole, Nancy. (2000). Evaluation report of the Sheway Project for high-risk pregnant and parenting women. Vancouver: British Columbia Centre of Excellence for Women’s Health.

Rasmussen, C., Kully-Martens, K., Denys, K., Badry, D., Henneveld, D., Wyper, K., Grant, T. (2010). The Effectiveness of a Community-Based Intervention Program for Women At-Risk for Giving Birth to a Child with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD). Community Mental Health Journal, DOI: 10.1007/s10597-010-9342-0.

Salmon, A. and Clarren, S.K. (2011). Developing effective, culturally appropriate avenues to FASD diagnosis and prevention in northern Canada. International Journal of Circumpolar Health, published online 29.08.2011. PMID: 21878184. Download the free full-text here.

Salmon, A. (2010).  “Strength and support: A women’s perspective.” In Jonsson, E., Dennett, L., Littlejohn, G., Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD): Across the Lifespan: Proceedings from an IHE Consensus Development Conference 2009. Videos of the full conference can viewed here. Hard copies of the book can be ordered from the Institute of Health Economics or downloaded as a PDF.