Objective: This study explores refugee and immigrant newcomers’ experiences with Covid-19 in the Windsor-Essex area of Ontario, examining how government policies and regulations around Covid-19 have affected their mental health.

Justification: This study draws on the theoretical framework of Emile Durkheim, which suggests that mental health and Covid-19 related psychological experiences are affected by variances of “integration” and “regulation” in society’s main institutions, including the family, political, religious, and occupational spaces. Institutional directives related to Covid-19, on the one hand may result in perception of a highly regulated environment, which Durkheim argued will increase fatalistic harmful practices, and on the other hand, may minimize social integration, which he claims will result in anomic practices. Newcomer youth may be especially vulnerable due to their experience of loss of traditional social networks based on their place of origin and relatively lower level of social connections in Canada due to the recency of their migration.

Practical goal: to explore whether objective and subjective family relations, in addition to youth perception of institutional directives related to Covid-19, will have significant effect on their mental health, anxiety, fear, sense of helplessness, and practices of self-harm. The study also considers whether youth’s subjective health and psychological experiences are exasperated due to their low socio-economic status and struggles in Canada and how these differ among newcomers from different country of origins, with different human capital (education and language) or social capital (ethnic and family networks), employment, and entry statuses.

Primary audience: policy makers, service providers, academics, and newcomers