Let’s Make Health Matter
By Dr. Charles Gardner, Simcoe Muskoka Medical Officer of Health
The provincial government plays an important role in shaping policies that affect all aspects of our lives, including our health. A key role of the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit is to work with partners and decision-makers to revise or create policies that take health into consideration.
During the provincial election campaign let’s make health matter by encouraging government actions on important public health issues to reduce preventable illness and death and improve overall health in Simcoe and Muskoka.
Political decisions have a significant impact on what are broadly known as the social determinants of health. Low income creates barriers to healthy foods, adequate housing and services such as dental care. Surveys in Simcoe Muskoka have shown that only about half of those with the lowest income feel their health is excellent or good, while 70 per cent of those in the highest income bracket report excellent or good health.
The province is currently engaged in a pilot project offering a guaranteed income in some communities. Public health advocates strongly support this initiative and recommend its continuation.
Providing for affordable housing and funding revitalization projects in lower income neighbourhoods will improve health and safety for those residents, and strengthen community connectedness that also contributes to well-being.
Public health impacts also arise from the policies and guidelines the province establishes around how our land is designated and developed. Community design and the preservation of agricultural land and green space can affect the availability of the food we eat, the amount of physical activity we get, the quality of the air we breathe, and our overall sense of well-being.
Other issues have emerged in recent years that are linked to policy. Public health is closely watching the outcomes of the provincial decision to relax alcohol sales laws, bringing beer into many grocery stores and farmers’ markets. In other provinces, there have been increases in alcohol-related accidents and violence resulting from freer access to alcohol. In Simcoe Muskoka, alcohol consumption levels were already above the provincial average before these changes. With the federal legalization of cannabis, there are great concerns about the harms that can come from overuse, use at too early an age, and use while driving or doing any complex tasks.
While great strides have been made in reducing the number of people addicted to tobacco products, it still remains the province’s number one cause of preventable death and chronic disease. Provincially, new strategies are required to help the population using tobacco to decline to less than five per cent in the next 15 years.
Such issues have a broad impact on the burden and costs of preventable illness and death across the province. The health unit has produced a fact sheet that highlights these issues and provides suggested actions the provincial government can take to improve the health of all Ontarians. This fact sheet, along with additional information and questions you can ask your local candidates, is posted on our website at www.smdhu.org/election2018.
Dr. Charles Gardner is Simcoe Muskoka’s medical officer of health.
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Rob, you have hit the nail on the head: “The self-esteem derived from being employed is another social determinant of health.”
People need productive work to do. Those who are most satisfied with their lives are those who have contributed to making their communities more prosperous, peaceful, safer, healthy and more cooperative. It doesn’t have to be paid work to gain that satisfaction–that is just one measure of the gratitude of a community that has benefited from the work of its people.
Much of the world has fallen into despair because of the policies of the ruling elites–who often seem extraordinarily foolish. But that need not happen where a cooperative and resourceful people are determined that their communities will not only survive but thrive under the blessings of Providence. That is the historical path that has led us to this moment.
The ongoing quiet evolution in the arena of work has led to a loss of confidence among the people but there are signs that the people are shaking off that helplessness. There is still much work to be done. We need an equivalent reformation in education and especially the moral fabric of society. We are all in the same lifeboat and there is much mental work to be done in advance of repairing it. One of the beauties of democracy is that it give the people the freedom they need to correct misguided mistakes of the past and forge ahead to a brighter future. Merely placing people on the dole numbs their minds and hearts and tells them their community no longer needs them when, in fact, their wisdom might be very much needed to counteract the foolishness that we often see expressed today.
Societies in the past venerated the elderly for their wisdom–not so today. We have become the poorer for the overarching emphasis on youth in the West. The “foolishness of youth” is a reflection of their lack of experience (experience hopefully leads to wisdom, not bitterness). The most destructive ideas in recent times have often been promoted by young people. The “sexual revolution” was embraced by the youth of the “hippie” culture and that has caused the proliferation of fatherless homes, which have, in turn given rise to increased poverty, lawlessness and lack of protection for vulnerable children. Worse, the modern young feminist cult of female supremacy has asked women to embrace the killing of innocent human life. Thus, denying the civilization-founding role of women as the bearers of life.
The “drug culture” has also been an invention of the young and foolish, with obviously devastating consequences.
Is anyone listening to the wisdom of experience combined with intelligence and compassion or are we gong to continue on in our foolish and evil ways? People in want should certainly have their physical needs addressed but that alone will not contribute to the betterment of our communities. Bodies need nourishment yes, but the minds and hearts of those living in our communities need nourishment as well.
Congratulations to Dr. Gardner for this compendium of health issues/solutions as we head into the provincial election; and to The Doppler for recognizing its importance to all of us. I have one suggestion, however, to be used in concert with the basic income. If a “living wage” could also be introduced in these areas (resulting in a higher net income than the basic income); people would be encouraged to seek employment. The self-esteem derived from being employed is another social determinant of health.