Mental health related experiences among African Caribbean, and Black immigrant and refugee families living with HIV/ AIDS in Greater Toronto Area, Canada
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Introduction: In 2021, there were nearly 38 million people living with HIV worldwide and approximately 61,110 in Canada. Africans, Caribbean people, and the Black community make up less than 3.5% of the Canadian population, but account for 22% of people living with HIV in Canada. Our study explores the mental health related experiences of African, Caribbean, Black immigrant families living with HIV in Canada’s Greater Toronto Area. Methods: A qualitative descriptive study was carried out between September, 2022 and December, 2023. Purposive sampling was used to select 20 participants, and semi-structured interviews were conducted. Content and thematic analyses of data were performed. Results: Participants ranged in age from 32 to 73 years, 60% were female, the majority had only completed college (65%), and most of them were not working. Three themes were identified: 1) HIV related struggles (neurocognitive impairment, HIV-related stigma and shame, racism and discrimination, and the impact of HIV-related stigma on mental health); 2) Systemic barriers (racism, stereotyping, systemic discrimination, employment and housing issues); and 3) social network building (isolation and solitude, disclosure dilemma). Discussion: Intersecting and complex factors associated with immigration and resettlement of African immigrants living with HIV affect their mental health and that of their families. Isolation and social exclusion are major stressors for these families, and their mental health is compromised by everyday encounters with systemic barriers. Conclusion: African immigrants and refugees living with HIV/AIDS experience mental health challenges related to co-morbidities caused by the HIV Virus. Integration of mental health services into HIV services would strengthen HIV prevention and care outcomes and improve access to mental health care. Keywords: Immigrants and refugees, HIV/AIDS, mental health, families, Canada.
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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 | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.018 | 0.004 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.000 |
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".