P-309 Investigating health and other characteristics of Military Veterans authorized to receive medicinal cannabis in Canada
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Introduction Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC) has reimbursed cannabis for medical purposes (CMP) since 2008. However, to date little is known about the characteristics of Veterans authorized for CMP, and whether these differ by authorization amount. Objectives To descriptively summarize social, health, and other characteristics of Canadian Regular Force Veterans authorized to receive CMP from Veterans Affairs Canada. Methods A linked database of CMP authorizations was developed using VAC reimbursement files, VAC client records, and military personnel data. Analyses were limited to 13,173 Regular Force Veterans residing in Canada with an active authorization as of December 31, 2020. CMP authorization amounts (mean and categorical) were summarized by sociodemographic factors, pensionable conditions and benefits, and military service characteristics. Results Overall, the average amount of a CMP authorization among Canadian Veterans was 3.6 grams/day. For sociodemographic characteristics, the highest average amounts were observed among Veterans who were aged 30 to 39 years (4.2g/day), male (3.7g/day), separated/divorced/widowed (3.8g/day), and residing in the provinces of New Brunswick (4.7g/day), Newfoundland and Labrador (4.1g/day) and Manitoba (4.1g/day). For conditions documented as part of the VAC benefit process, the highest average amounts were observed among Veterans with mental health (3.9g/day) and hearing loss conditions (3.7g/day). For military service characteristics (sub-sample of 9,200 Veterans) the highest average amounts were observed among Veterans with a more recent release year, peaking in 2016 (4.2g/day); and among those who were Junior Non-Commissioned Members (4.0g/day), had served in the army (4.0g/day), and released from the military involuntarily (4.8g/day). Conclusion This descriptive epidemiology provides new insights on the characteristics of a large population of veterans with medical cannabis authorizations in Canada. This will be used to inform further research on associations between CMP authorizations and wellness outcomes among military veterans.
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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 | 0.000 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.006 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.009 | 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".