Health Region not surprised by low health ranking

The report states 19 per cent of people in Prince Albert and its surrounding areas live on a low income. It also states 42 per cent of people are overweight and 23 per cent smoke on a daily basis.

Dahl said the region’s smoking rate hasn’t changed in some time.

“It’s lower than it would have been 25 years ago,” said Dahl. “But it seems to be sort of stuck at the number it’s at right now for a while.

“And what can we do to try to reduce the use of tobacco that we know causes so many health problems?”

Dahl said the PAPHR has been implementing programs to help people make healthier choices.

“We do a lot of things with community partnerships to try to encourage healthier living,” said Dahl. “We do a lot of health promotion around healthy food choices, we work with school divisions around those.

“In some of our rural communities we’ve help set up community gardens just to try to encourage people and improve access to healthy food.”

The PAPHR has also invested substantially in primary care and chronic disease management within the last several years, according to Dahl.

According to The 10 and 3’s report, the Prince Albert region suffers a diabetes rate of well over 9 per cent.

“Saying that we have a high rate of diabetes – that’s a problem,” said Dahl. “What we as a health system need to do, is try to make sure that we have the programs in place to support those people so that they can manage their diabetes and still live a healthy life.”

Dahl said it can be difficult for people in remote or rural areas to be physically active, which is another factor that can lead to health issues.

“Somebody who lives 5, 10, 15 miles outside of a centre – they can’t walk to the grocery store,” said Dahl.

While physical activity is a challenge in rural areas, the challenge within the larger centre of Prince Albert is a lack of physicians.

“We know there’s access issues in Prince Albert,” said Dahl. “In the clinics there’s been changes and turnover so they’ve had challenges in recruiting.”

Dahl emphasized the Prince Albert area’s ‘unhealthiest place to live’ ranking doesn’t mean living in the area makes people sick.

“Why is our population unhealthy? I don’t think it’s because the air quality is bad, that we have a high rate of asthma. There’s got to be something else going on.”

Dahl said the health region is focusing on the lifestyle issues related to health problems and how to support healthier lifestyles.

jsperling@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @jnsperling

by Jill Sperling

Health Region not surprised by low health ranking

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