New study to better understand youth and their environment

A study was launched this past July under the name of Centre-Ville Équitable et en Santé (Cen-trÉS). Its goal, according to a press release, is to advance understanding how urban revitalization could impact how young people perceive and experience their neighbourhood as well as their well-being.
In June, the city of Sherbrooke began revitalization projects in the downtown core on Wellington-South Street. According to CentrÉS, “intervening in socially disadvantaged neighbourhoods by building new housing, retail and public spaces may improve health and reduce social inequalities in health. Such revitalization interventions may, however, also have negative impacts on local popula-tions’ sense of belonging, social networks, and well-being,” the study suggests.
The study aims to sample a population of 2,000 youths from the age of 16 to 30 from across Sher-brooke’s boroughs, particularly the downtown district. So far, there have been around 300 partici-pants who have completed the survey which is not yet available in a mobile version.
Martine Shareck Ph.D., the principal investigator and assistant professor at University of Sher-brooke’s Department of Community Health Sciences, the study would like to reach English-speaking participants. Shareck also mentioned the importance of a local study, saying, “there aren’t many studies of medium sized cities such as Sherbrooke and that the evidence from big cities isn’t generalizable to cities like Sherbrooke.”
Shareck went on to say that this study is important—especially in the downtown core since one of the fears of Sherbrooke’s plans to expand its downtown core, is that it will create exclusion amongst the youth population in the area.
While there is a heightened interest in the downtown core of Sherbrooke and the impact that its de-velopment will have on the local youth, Shareck mentioned that she is also interested in Sher-brooke’s neighborhoods, including Lennoxville.
According to Shareck, “It is very important to get everyone’s opinion”. If you are a youth aged from 16 to 30 years old, you can participate by visiting the website: www.etudecentres.ca to fill out the survey which is also available in English.

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