Dear Tara:

 Re: the following from the Canadian Health Ministers' Meeting Press Release:

Healthy Living*
  Beyond considering current needs in health care, Health Ministers also focused
 on
the future. One key to effective, affordable and responsive health care is to
have
governments, the health care community, and individual Canadians concentrate on
the prevention of illness and the promotion of good health.

 To support such an effort, Ministers today agreed to work together on short,
medium and long-term, pan-Canadian  'healthy living' strategies that emphasize
nutrition, physical activity, and healthy weights. The aim is to promote good
health
and reduce the risk factors associated with diabetes, cancer and cardiovascular
and
respiratory diseases, and the burden they place on health care. Each year, more
than
two-thirds of deaths in Canada result from these four disease groups.

 Ministers announced that this winter, a national healthy living symposium will
bring
together health and other sectors of government, non-government organizations,
health specialists, First Nations and Inuit, business and other stakeholders.
Participants will set out specific initiatives to support healthy living in the
context of
healthy communities, including rural, remote and Northern areas. Ministers
directed
their officials to report on the progress of the new strategy in mid-2003.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tara, do you think that someone could direct all the Health Ministers and their
staff to the Health
Canada website which discusses the determinants of health?  "Healthy living"
accounts for very
little of whether people become ill or stay health.  Rather, policies that
increase
poverty and income inequality are far and away the greatest predictors of poor
population
health.  What's the point of Health Canada printing all all of their documents
and maintaining
their web site if nobody pays any attention to its content?

--
Dennis Raphael, Ph.D.
Associate Professor & Undergraduate Programme Director
School of Health Policy & Management
Atkinson Faculty of Liberal & Professional Studies
York University
4700 Keele St.
Toronto ON M3J 1P3
Ph: 416-736-2100 ext. 22134
Fax: 416-736-5227
E-mail: [log in to unmask]

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