The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Jonathon Naylor Editor The health regions shared by Flin Flon and Creighton have among the lowest life expectancies in Canada, a study has found. People who are born today and spend their entire lives in the the NOR-MAN Regional Health Authority can expect to live 74.7 years. In the Mamawetan Churchill River Health Region and across the rest of northern Saskatchewan, the figure is slightly lower at 74.1 years. According to a study from the Conference Board of Canada's Centre for the North, that gives NOR-MAN the fifth-lowest life expectancy in the country. Mamawetan and northern Saskatchewan have the fourth-lowest. Reserves The many First Nations reserves in both regions certainly impacted the results. Health-related problems in those communities are well documented, from crowded homes and high diabetes rates to drug and alcohol addiction. But there were other factors in explaining the findings. Specifically, the report cited poor living conditions, a lack of primary health care services and higher accident rates. The study did not distinguish between reserves and non-reserves, but other data has shown residents of Flin Flon and Creighton live longer than many of their regional counterparts. Last year's year-end report from the NRHA showed that Flin Flon, Cranberry Portage and Snow Lake together have a life expectancy of 75.9 years for males and 79.7 years for females. Mamawetan's latest year-end report made no mention of life expectancy, but the projected lifespan would appear to be the same or similar across Flin Flon, Creighton and Denare Beach. In that case, residents of all three communities are not quite living as long as the national average of about 81 years. See 'Canad...' on pg. 6 Continued from pg. 1 The Centre for the North study found that the region of Nunavik, in northern Quebec, has Canada's lowest life expectancy at 66.7 years Ð lower than even that of war-torn Iraq. Nunavut had the second-lowest expectancy at 68.7 years, followed by the Burntwood / Churchill health regions of northern Manitoba at 72.3 years. Enjoying the longest life expectancies were Richmond (B.C.) at 83.4 years; Peel (Ontario) and North Shore / Coast Garibaldi (B.C.) at 81.4 years; Halton (Ontario) at 81.2 years; and Fraser South (B.C.) at 80.9 years. The study noted that Canada's national life expectancy ranks the country seventh in the world, behind countries such as Japan (82.9 years), Switzerland (82 years)and Australia (81.5 years), but ahead of the United States (78.7 years). Life expectancy is defined as the number of years a person would expect to live, starting at birth, if today's mortality rates remained the same throughout a person's life. It is commonly used as a basic measure of the health within a population.8/6/11
