C. Nadine Wathen

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Professor & Canada Research Chair at Western University

Introduction Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a widespread social and health problem disproportionately burdening women and, we are learning, gender and sexual minority (GSM) people, who are under-represented in research. The measurement and reporting of gender and sexual orientation in health and social science research are also inadequate. Met...

Background Despite growing literature, few studies have explored the implementation of policy interventions to reduce maternal and perinatal mortality in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Even fewer studies explicitly articulate the theoretical approaches used to understand contextual influences on policy implementation. This under-use of t...

Adolescent pregnancy is a significant global health issue, particularly prevalent in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). In these regions, adolescent pregnancy is often seen as deviant, irresponsible, and shameful behavior, impacting not just the young mother but her entire family and community. Consequently, adolescent mothers frequently fac...

Background The implementation of the maternal perinatal death surveillance and response (MPDSR) policy is among the envisaged strategies to reduce the high global burden of maternal and perinatal mortality and morbidity. However, implementation of this policy across various contexts is inconsistent. Theoretically informed approaches to process eval...

There are pathways in and out of homelessness that are gender-specific. However, little is known about the range of existing studies on the experiences of women who recently transitioned from homeless to housed in high-income countries. To date, no systematic reviews have brought together qualitative analyses from studies exploring women’s experien...

There are pathways in and out of homelessness that are gender-specific. However, little is known about the range of existing studies on the experiences of women who recently transitioned from homeless to housed in high-income countries. To date, no systematic reviews have brought together qualitative analyses from studies exploring women’s experien...

Background Gender‐based violence is a worldwide health and social problem with negative short‐ and long‐term health impacts. Sexual and gender minority people experience more gender‐based violence and significant barriers to support. These populations are often not included in, or are actively excluded from, gender‐based violence research, and sexu...

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is at epidemic levels across low-, middle-, and high-income countries, including Canada, where recent lifetime prevalence indicated that over 40% of women had IPV experiences. In response to this, Canada’s federal government has made investments toward IPV prevention and response. We conducted a scoping review of Eng...

Introduction Adolescent mothers require trauma- and violence-informed care during the perinatal period due to trauma histories and ongoing violence as a result of pregnancy. Nurses and midwives play a critical role in caring for adolescent mothers in primary healthcare settings in Rwanda in the perinatal period. Purpose To explore the experiences...

Introduction In Rwanda, maternal community health workers play a critical role to improving maternal, newborn and child health, but little is known about their specific experiences with adolescent mothers, who face unique challenges, including trauma, ongoing violence, stigma, ostracism, mental health issues, barriers within the healthcare system,...

People who are structurally disadvantaged and marginalized often report poor health care experiences, such as inequitable treatment, due to intersecting forms of stigma and discrimination. There are many measures of patient experiences of care, however, few are designed to measure equity-oriented health care. In alignment with ongoing calls to inte...

Background The implementation of the maternal perinatal death surveillance and response (MPDSR) policy is among the envisaged strategies to reduce the high global burden of maternal and perinatal mortality and morbidity. However, implementation of this policy across various contexts is inconsistent. Theoretically informed approaches to process eval...

Study Background The effects of systemic racism were exacerbated and amplified throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. The resurgence of the “Black Lives Matter” movement in North America brought awareness to the public, especially white people, of the impacts of systemic racism in society and the urgent need for large-scale and institutional anti-racism...

Background Despite growing literature, few studies have explored the implementation of policy interventions to reduce maternal and perinatal mortality in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Even fewer studies explicitly articulate the theoretical approaches used to understand contextual influences on policy implementation. This under-use of t...

Background Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) exposes women and children to a wide range of challenges across housing, employment, social connections, and child well-being and is a public health issue. IPV survivors are at heightened risk of housing insecurity and homelessness. Emergency shelters have historically offered respite and support, but the...

Background Intimate partner violence (IPV) threatens the safety, health and quality of life of women worldwide. Comprehensive IPV interventions that are tailored, take a long-term view of women’s needs, including health concerns, and maximize choice and control, have the potential to effectively address heath and safety concerns. Few such intervent...

People who are structurally disadvantaged and marginalized often report poor health care experiences due to intersecting forms of stigma and discrimination. There are many measures of patient experiences of care, however, few are designed to measure equity-oriented care. In alignment with ongoing calls to integrate actions in support of health equi...

Background Guidelines and regulations in response to the COVID-19 pandemic have significantly impacted the health care sector. We explore these impacts in the gender-based violence (GBV) services sector and, more specifically, in the context of women’s shelters. Methods Using an interpretive description and integrated knowledge mobilization approa...

Background The purpose of this study was to explore the dimensional structure of the Environmental Health Officer (EHO) responses to the BARRIERS Scale from data collected in 2012 and 2020 to: (1) uncover new holistic ways of interpreting the factors influencing research utilization (RU); and (2) apply a theoretical lens to the data. Methods Princ...

Purposeof Review Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a complex traumatic experience that often co-occurs, or is causally linked, with other forms of structural violence and oppression. However, few IPV interventions integrate this social-ecological perspective. We examine trauma- and violence-informed care (TVIC) in the context of existing IPV inter...

Background Despite a publicly funded system, health care in Canada has been shown to be deeply inequitable, particularly toward Indigenous people. Based on research identifying key dimensions of equity-oriented health care as being cultural safety, harm reduction and trauma- and violence-informed care, an intervention to promote equity at the organ...

The COVID-19 pandemic has been harmful to survivors of abuse. Less understood is the impact on staff in the violence against women (VAW) service sector. Using interpretive description methodology, we examined staff experiences during the pandemic in Ontario, Canada, and found four core themes: (1) the emotional toll of the work; (2) remote (doesn't...

Understanding the barriers to research utilization (RU) experienced by Environmental Health Officers (EHOs) facilitates evidence use and improved outcomes in both normal and emergency practice. The purposes of this study were to (i) understand the barriers to research use in the everyday work of EHOs and (ii) determine how these barriers change in...

Background Violence against women (VAW) is a major public health problem that grew worse during the COVID-19 pandemic. While all services were impacted by changing pandemic guidance, VAW shelters, as congregate settings with multiple funders and regulators, faced unique challenges. Methods We conducted a qualitative analysis of interviews with 26...

Background Despite a publicly funded system, health care in Canada has been shown to be deeply inequitable, particularly toward Indigenous people. Based on research identifying key dimensions of equity-oriented health care as being cultural safety, harm reduction and trauma- and violence-informed care, an intervention to promote equity at the organ...

The COVID-19 pandemic has had significant impacts on violence against women (VAW), including increased prevalence and severity, and on VAW service delivery. The purpose of this research was to study women’s experiences with VAW services in the first stages of the pandemic and describe their fears and concerns. This cross-sectional study was conduct...

COVID-19 illustrated what governments can do to mobilise against a global threat. Despite the strong governmental response to COVID-19 in Canada, another ‘pandemic’, gender-based violence (GBV), has been causing grave harm with generally insufficient policy responses. Using interpretive description methodology, 26 interviews were conducted with she...

Plain English summary Lung cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in Canada and is responsible for a quarter of all cancer-related deaths in the country. Screening for lung cancer using tools such as a CT scan can allow us to find lung cancers when they are still small and curable. People can receive a lung CT scan depending on how old they a...

People who experience the greatest social inequities often have poor experiences in emergency departments (EDs) so that they are deterred from seeking care, leave without care complete, receive inadequate care, and/or return repeatedly for unresolved problems. However, efforts to measure and monitor experiences of care rarely capture the experience...

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a health problem affecting people of all genders and other social locations. While IPV victimization of cis-gendered women has been widely researched, how men conceptualized or experience IPV victimization, and the variations in their experiences of IPV, has not been thoroughly examined. In this critical review of...

Objective: Globally, domestic violence against women increased in severity over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. Shelters supporting women experiencing temporary homelessness due to violence had to make major changes in service delivery to accommodate pandemic protocols, including how many families could stay in shelter, where they were allowed...

Background: Screening for lung cancer with low dose CT can facilitate the detection of early-stage lung cancers that are amenable to treatment, reducing mortality related to lung cancer. Individuals are considered eligible for lung cancer screening if they meet specific high-risk criteria, such as age and smoking history. Population groups that are...

Domestic violence shelters present a unique context within the congregate living sector in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Shelters supporting women during the pandemic had to change service delivery models to include housing women in hotels to adhere to government restrictions and ensure women, and their children, were not homeless. The purp...

Aims: To evaluate the effect of an intimate partner violence intervention education component on nurses' attitudes in addressing intimate partner violence; complementary aims included understanding nurses' perceptions of the education and how it influenced their attitudes and confidence to address intimate partner violence in practice. Design: A...

Objectives There is growing policy impetus for including youth voices in health services research and health system reform. This article examines the perspectives of professionals in a mental healthcare organization charged with engaging young people as advisors in service transformation. Methods An institutional ethnography of a youth mental heal...

Trauma- (and violence-) informed care (T(V)IC) has emerged as an important practice approach across a spectrum of care settings; however how to measure its implementation and impact has not been well-examined. The purpose of this scoping review is to describe the nature and extent of available measures of T(V)IC, including the cross-cutting concept...

Background As part of a larger study focused on interventions to enhance the capacity of nurses and other health care workers to provide equity-oriented care in emergency departments (EDs), we conducted an analysis of news media related to three EDs. The purpose of the analysis was to examine how media writers frame issues pertaining to nursing, as...

Objectives Trauma‐ and violence‐informed care (TVIC) creates safety by understanding the impacts of trauma on health and behavior, and the intersecting impacts of structural and interpersonal violence. This study examined the impact, 1–2 years later, of TVIC professional education. Design, Sample and Measurements We conducted a mixed method descri...

The impacts of intimate partner violence (IPV) on work, workplaces, and employment are receiving increasing attention from researchers, employers, and policy makers, but research synthesis is needed to develop evidence-based strategies to address the problem. The purpose of this review of qualitative research is to explore abused women’s experience...

Petersen et al. (Stem cell tourism and political economy of hope. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017) follow people from one clinical location to another in pursuit of stem cell treatments that are available in some parts of the world but not others.

Responsibility captures the ways in which the burden of responsibility for health and wellbeing is being shifted onto individuals. In most Western countries, current laws and regulations require individuals to be fully informed about medical procedures and to be offered the choice either to consent to it or to opt out. But as the books included amp...

This paper presents one model for building and sustaining a research partnership between researchers and professional staff in child protection (CPS) agencies. The Maltreatment and Adolescent Pathways (MAP) study was designed to assess the health and well-being of the population of adolescents involved in the child welfare system of a major urban a...

A trauma‐and‐violence‐informed‐care (TVIC) system within an educational setting provides a framework of practice that enables schools to become safe and inclusive places for some of the most vulnerable students. Initial teacher education may provide the opportunity to prepare teachers to create classrooms and learning experiences that are safe, equ...

Abstract Background Responding to intimate partner violence (IPV) and its consequences is made complex by women’s diverse needs, priorities and contexts. Tailored online IPV interventions that account for differences among women have potential to reduce barriers to support and improve key outcomes. Methods Double blind randomized controlled trial o...

Background: Responding to intimate partner violence (IPV) and its consequences is made complex by women’s diverse needs, priorities and contexts. Tailored online IPV interventions that account for differences among women have potential to reduce barriers to support and improve key outcomes. Methods: Double blind randomized controlled trial of 462 C...

Increasingly, intimate partner violence (IPV) is recognized as having important impacts on work. The purpose of this scoping review is to describe the nature and extent of research on IPV and workers, the workplace, and/or employment. Using multiple search strategies, including searches conducted by a professional librarian from database inception...

Background: Social inequities are widening globally, contributing to growing health and health care inequities. Health inequities are unjust differences in health and well-being between and within groups of people caused by socially structured, and thus avoidable, marginalizing conditions such as poverty and systemic racism. In Canada, such condit...

Importance Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a public health problem with significant adverse consequences for women and children. Past evaluations of a nurse home visitation program for pregnant women and first-time mothers experiencing social and economic disadvantage have not consistently shown reductions in IPV. Objective To determine the eff...

Objective: To systematically synthesise qualitative research that explores children's and caregivers' perceptions of mandatory reporting. Design: We conducted a meta-synthesis of qualitative studies. Data sources: Searches were conducted in Medline, Embase, PsycINFO, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, Criminal Justice Ab...

Policy Points • A consensus regarding the need to orient health systems to address inequities is emerging, with much of this discussion targeting population health interventions and indicators. We know less about applying these approaches to primary health care. • This study empirically demonstrates that providing more equity‐oriented health care...

Background: The health care sector has a significant role to play in fostering equity in the context of widening global social and health inequities. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the process and impacts of implementing an organizational-level health equity intervention aimed at enhancing capacity to provide equity-oriented health car...

Background: Non-government, not-for-profit community health centres (CHCs) play a crucial role within healthcare systems in fostering equity, acting both as direct providers of services and as sentinels of health and social inequity. In a study of an intervention to promote equity-oriented health care, we enlisted four diverse primary healthcare c...

Objectives Intimate partner violence (IPV) has significant impacts on workers and workplaces. This paper examines the experiences of gender and sexual minority (GSM) people in this context. Methods People aged 15 and older completed an online survey on the impacts of IPV at work, and brief health and life quality questions. Of 7918 respondents, 8.5...

Objectives To synthesise evidence on the acceptable identification and initial response to children’s exposure to intimate partner violence (IPV) from the perspectives of providers and recipients of healthcare and social services. Design We conducted a thematic synthesis of qualitative research, appraised the included studies with the modified Cri...

Despite being a primary response to child abuse, it is currently unknown whether contact with child protection services (CPS) does more good than harm. The aim of the current study was to examine whether contact with CPS is associated with improved mental health outcomes among adult respondents who reported experiencing child abuse, after adjusting...

Legal responses to intimate partner violence (IPV) can determine whether and how those exposed to IPV seek help. Understanding the victim’s perspective is essential to developing policy and practice standards, as well as informing professionals working in policing and the justice system. In this survey study, we utilized a subset of 2,831 people wh...

Objective To systematically search for research about the effectiveness of mandatory reporting of child maltreatment and to synthesise qualitative research that explores mandated reporters’ (MRs) experiences with reporting. Design As no studies assessing the effectiveness of mandatory reporting were retrieved from our systematic search, we conduct...

Domestic violence (DV) is increasingly recognized as an occupational health and safety issue, however little is known about the DV-specific resources/supports available in workplaces. A sample of 8,041 Canadian workers who were currently employed responded to online survey questions on the types of DV-related information they received in the workpl...

Effective and efficient methods of succession planning are integral to the success of organizations across the health care system. We explored current health organizations' senior leadership transition processes. Participants were in senior level leadership and decision-making positions in hospitals within Ontario, Canada. Most of the participants...

Background Preventing family violence requires that stakeholders and the broader public be involved in developing evidence-based violence prevention strategies. However, gaps exist in between what we know (knowledge), what we do (action), and the structures supporting practice (policy). Discussion We discuss the broad challenge of mobilizing knowl...

Background: Intimate partner violence (IPV) threatens the safety and health of women worldwide. Safety planning is a widely recommended, evidence-based intervention for women experiencing IPV, yet fewer than 1 in 5 Canadian women access safety planning through domestic violence services. Rural, Indigenous, racialized, and immigrant women, those wh...

Background: Integrated knowledge translation has risen in popularity as a solution to the underuse of research in policy and practice settings. It engages knowledge users-policymakers, practitioners, patients/consumers or their advocates, and members of the wider public-in mutually beneficial research that can involve the joint development of rese...

Background Effective delivery of interventions by health and social services requires research-based knowledge which identifies the causes and consequences of violence against women. Methods to effectively share new knowledge with violence against women decision-makers remain under studied. Purpose This paper examines how new research-based knowle...

Objectives Approaches to measuring intimate partner violence (IPV) in populations often privilege physical violence, with poor assessment of other experiences. This has led to underestimating the scope and impact of IPV. The aim of this study was to develop a brief, reliable and valid self-report measure of IPV that adequately captures its complexi...

Although domestic violence is increasingly identified as a workplace issue, little is known about workplace supports and the role of gender in workplace disclosure experiences. Using a subset of 2,831 people who experienced domestic violence, we examined (a) who discloses at work and to whom, and reasons for not disclosing; (b) helpfulness of discl...

For full transparency, the authors wish to update the competing interest statement of this article [1] with the following information: The Prevention Research Center for Family and Child Health (PRC), directed by Dr. David Olds at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, has a contract with the Nurse-Family Partnership© to conduct research to...

Children's exposure to intimate partner violence (IPV) is associated with significant emotional impairment and other harmful effects. It is increasingly recognized as a type of child maltreatment, with outcomes similar to other types of abuse and neglect. Children can experience harm from exposure to IPV, even when not directly involved in, or a wi...

Objectives To examine the role of abuse severity in predicting women’s trajectories in mental and physical health and psychological quality of life during the 18 months following abuse identification in a health care setting. Methods The present analysis used growth curve modeling in a sample of 411 women positive for abuse on the Composite Abuse S...

Background There is a need to understand scientific evidence in light of the context within which it will be used. Deliberative dialogues are a promising strategy that can be used to meet this evidence interpretation challenge. Methods We evaluated a deliberative dialogue held by a transnational violence prevention network. The deliberative dialog...

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is the most common form of gender-based violence affecting Canadian women. Women often seek help from shelters to deal with IPV and its consequences. These shelters function within a broader context that shapes how services are delivered. This study was undertaken to better understand how structural factors including...

Amid growing concern about the graying population, an emerging theme in public health discourse is that of “successful aging.” In this article, we use a governmentality lens to analyze a Canadian health promotion video, titled “Make Health Last: What Will Your Last 10 Years Look Like?” and viewers’ responses to its message. The video presents stark...

Background: Domestic violence (DV) is associated with serious consequences for victims, children, and families, and even national economies. An emerging literature demonstrates that DV also has a negative impact on workers and workplaces. Less is known about the extent to which people are aware of coworkers' experiences of DV. Methods: Using dat...

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a major public health problem, and recent attention has focused on its impact on workers and workplaces. We provide findings from a pan-Canadian online survey on the relationships among IPV, work, and health. In total, 8,429 people completed the survey, 95.5% of them in English and 78.4% female. Reflecting the rec...

Objective: To describe the self-reported oral health issues among a community sample of primary care clients experiencing socioeconomic disadvantages. Methods: As part of a larger mixed-methods, multiple case study evaluating an equity-oriented primary healthcare intervention, we examined the oral health of a sample of 567 people receiving care...

Background The primary health care (PHC) sector is increasingly relevant as a site for population health interventions, particularly in relation to marginalized groups, where the greatest gains in health status can be achieved. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of an innovative multi-component, organizational-level intervention de...

Objective: The purpose of this study was to compare effectiveness of different options for deduplicating records retrieved from systematic review searches. Methods: Using the records from a published systematic review, five de-duplication options were compared. The time taken to de-duplicate in each option and the number of false positives (were de...

When workers experience domestic violence (DV) at home, impacts are felt in the workplace; however, little research is available on this topic. We conducted an online survey regarding the impacts of DV at work. A total of 8429 people completed the survey. More than a third of respondents reported experiencing DV; among them, more than a third repor...

There is widespread recognition across the full range of applied research disciplines, including health and social services, about the challenges of integrating scientifically derived research evidence into policy and/or practice decisions. These "disconnects" or "knowledge-practice gaps" between research production and use have spawned a new resea...

Shelters for abused women function within a broad context that includes intersecting social structures, policies, and resources, which may constrain and limit the options available to abused women and tacitly reinforce the cycle of abuse. This feminist, qualitative study combined in-depth interviews and focus groups conducted with 37 staff and four...

Knowledge management (KM) encompasses strategies, processes, and practices that allow an organization to capture, share, store, access, and use knowledge. Ideal KM combines different sources of knowledge to support innovation and improve performance. Despite the importance of KM in health care organizations (HCOs), there has been very little empiri...

Academic authors and funders often want to know the “impact” of their publications, and this impact is generally judged by how and where the paper is cited in other academic works. This limited appraisal has been expanded in recent years as many are beginning to argue that nonacademic publishing venues should be included in assessing the impact of...

Shelters for abused women have expanded from "safe havens" to providing a range of residential and outreach services, and face increasing pressure to demonstrate "value for money" by providing evaluation metrics that may or may not reflect what they actually do. We conducted interviews and surveys with 68 shelter directors in Ontario, Canada, and f...

Results are reported from a study of shelters for abused women in Ontario, Canada, suggesting that what clients, managers, and frontline workers value most in shelter services is based on a care perspective in which ongoing relational support is seen as essential to effective service delivery. Presently, government-required metrics used to assess s...

Background: Intimate partner violence (IPV) and child maltreatment (CM) are major social and public health problems. Knowledge translation (KT) of best available research evidence has been suggested as a strategy to improve the care of those exposed to violence, however research on how best to promote the uptake and use of IPV and CM evidence for...

Background There is an increasing push in Western healthcare for people to ‘manage’ their health, a key aspect of what has been called the ‘new public health’. It has been argued that this ‘personal health management’ – informal work done to monitor, inform, or influence one’s health – may be a burden, with potential to contribute to poor health ou...

Family violence is a significant and complex public health problem that demands collaboration between researchers, practitioners, and policymakers for systemic, sustainable solutions. An integrated knowledge translation network was developed to support joint research production and application in the area. The purpose of this study was to determine...

Aims: Despite the advances in child maltreatment research, there is still the need for comprehensive information about how abuse affects a broad range of categories of young adult functioning, and the extent to which these vary by sex. We examined the associations between child physical abuse (PA) and sexual abuse (SA) and six areas of functioning...

Children's exposure to intimate partner violence (IPV) is now recognized as a form of child maltreatment associated with significant mental health impairment. This article provides an overview of the epidemiology of children's exposure to IPV, including prevalence, risk, and protective factors and associated impairment, and a summary of assessment...

Proceedings of the CAIS/ACSI 2009 conference.