International students and their accessibility to on-campus healthcare services
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background: There is limited information on international students’ experiences and access to the Canadian healthcare system at the University of Alberta. Objective: The main objective of this research project is to characterize the experiences of international students navigating on-campus healthcare resources at the University of Alberta from multiple perspectives (e.g., international students, healthcare providers, student advisors) and determine factors that influence it, including knowledge, attitudes, and perceived barriers. Methods: This exploratory, descriptive study employed a mixed-method approach to produce qualitative and quantitative data. Through snowball sampling, starting with targeted contacts from the International Student Centre (ISC), interviews were held using a semi-structured interview guide. Interview data was explored using thematic analysis. A 44-item survey was developed to measure the University of Alberta specific experiences including: help-seeking preferences, perceived cultural barriers, and attitudes towards using on-campus health resources. A descriptive analysis was used to characterize the data. Results: Results draw from nine interviews with international students, on-campus healthcare providers, and ISC advisors in addition to 59 survey responses from international students. The study determined three categories associated with international students: the Gatekeeper healthcare system, insurance imperatives, and the unique challenges with medications. Quantitative findings support the categories. For example, more than 50% of students were not knowledgeable about the Canadian healthcare system. Conclusions: Explaining the values and the structure of Canada’s healthcare system is a crucial step in ensuring international students’ access to healthcare services, as well as reconciling their expectations and realities of publicly funded healthcare of Canada. The University of Alberta should support initiatives that better help international students to explore the Canadian healthcare system. Support: University of Alberta Undergraduate Research Initiative (URI) and Social Sustainability Research Award.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.006 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.005 | 0.003 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.007 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.005 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.010 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".