|
O n February 9th, the Community Social Planning Council of Toronto, University of Toronto’s Social Assistance in the New Economy project and the Wellesley Institute hosted a community forum on poverty and health. The forum featured the report release of Poverty is Making Us Sick: A Comprehensive Survey of Income and Health in Canada; Sick and Tired: The Compromised Health of Social Assistance Recipients and the Working Poor in Ontario, a keynote address by Toronto’s Medical Officer of Health, Dr. David McKeown, and advocacy workshops on poverty and poor health.
Poverty is Making Us Sick, and the companion report, explore the most recent evidence on the relationship between income, a key social determinant of health, and important health outcomes in Canada. The two papers also examine access to and utilization of health services at different income levels.
We focus on the relationship between income and health outcomes using the most recent evidence available from the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS). Conducted in 2005, the CCHS is only large scale survey of the health of the Canadian population. This research capitalizes on the availability of individual micro-data files data through Statistics Canada’s Research Data Centres, which permits users to conduct research with confidential data from survey master files. The time period that this research examines represents the health of Canadian’s population in 2005, close to the peak of the economic cycle. In 2005 the unemployment rate in Canada was 6.8 percent, among the lowest in recent history and close to the 6.0 percent rate achieved in 2007.
click on the image above to watch the video
In general we found strong and highly significant relationships between low income status and the incidence of various chronic health conditions. The findings in this regard are more detailed than previously reported in other studies. We likewise found that overall utilization of the health care system (along with unmet needs in this system) were disproportionately weighted in favour of the poorest twenty percent of the population, undoubtedly reflecting their significantly poorer health overall.
Though it is not the intent of this paper to prescribe policy directions for the pursuit of health equity in Canada, this research clearly suggests – as others have also shown - that low income leads to poor health; and that poverty is incompatible with health equity. And to the extent that health equity is a desired social goal, this report provides quantitative estimates of the probable impacts of modest increases in income among the poorest Canadians.
High income, as this report shows, does not guarantee good health; but low income almost inevitably ensures poor health and significant health inequity in Canada.
Read the Report
"Poverty Is Making Us Sick"
click on the above link to read the report
links to other reports
|
