Part 2 of the Maclean’s series on health and equity in Canada touched upon the topic of defining health by the location of residence. The article published over the weekend goes in depth on the study Code Red that looks at the health disparity in 135 neighbourhoods in Hamilton, ON. It provided some striking illustration of what some residence in Hamilton experience; here is an example:
“.. And the child’s life would get no easier thereafter. If its parents lived an average life in this neighbourhood, they would die an average Third World death—at 65.5 years of age. If they lived five or six kilometres away, say, on Rice Avenue in the city’s leafy suburbs, they would live beyond 86 years…“
The use of postal code and place of residency has been the core tool used at the Centre to investigate health outcomes for rural communities. In two studies, increased stress and adverse perinatal outcomes were found in communities that are further away from health services. Please visit our publication page to access the full articles of these studies.