http://www.ffwdweekly.com/Issues/2003/1030/news2.htm

NEWS
by Fast Forward Staff

 Healthy living hard to come by for low-income Albertans

 The provincial government's efforts to encourage Albertans to lead
healthier lives may not be as
 beneficial as initially projected.

 Government funded anti-tobacco campaigns and fitness ventures have been
implemented to
 lessen the strain on the health care system, but according to critics,
there is a larger problem that
 needs to be addressed.

 "Canada has an international reputation in the health field of having
outlined concepts on what
 makes a population healthy," says Dr. Dennis Raphael of the School of
Health Policy and
 Management at York University.

 However, he argues that the Alberta government is not investing in all
levels of society.

 "(Provincial) governments are focused only on the holy trinity of risk ?
diet, tobacco and physical
 activity ? and not on the crucial determinants of health," says Dr.
Raphael.

 For example, his research cites a Poverty and Health Care Reform report
prepared by Social Issues
 Committee YWCA of Calgary that identifies poverty as the single most
important health factor.

 "Low-income Canadians are twice as likely to report poor health as
compared to high-income
 Canadians," says Dr. Raphael.

 Lack of affordable housing and government assistance has left many
Calgarians on the streets,
 cold and hungry.

 "Usually this stuff (homelessness) is not a lifestyle choice, but the
governments act as if it is," says
 Dr. Raphael.

 For example, he notes that Alberta has one of the largest gaps between the
wages of men and
 women, the lowest minimum wage in Canada and one of the lowest social
assistance rates in
 Canada."

 Cheryl Ann Rideout is one of many people who have experienced the link
between poverty and
 health first-hand.

 She came to Calgary from Nova Scotia in hopes of a better future for her
and her family, only to
 end up homeless and scrambling to find food to feed her four children.

 "It (poverty) definitely has a big impact on health ? I would say major
impact," she says.

 According to Rideout, lack of housing was at the root of all of her
hardships.

 "Sometimes, the bills were less important and food was more important,"
says Rideout, who made
 the decision to sacrifice shelter to feed her children.

 While avoiding the stereotypical welfare diet of Kraft dinner and bologna,
she struggled to provide
 proper nutrition for her children.

 "Nutrition is hard because they say 'eat this, eat that, eat right for
proper health.' Well, try going
 into a grocery store and affording all these foods. Sometimes it just
doesn't work out that way. It's
 hard a lot of the time to buy the proper foods for them," says Rideout,
who often went without food
 so her kids could eat.

 "To have to depend on a food bank just to get through is not a good
feeling."

 Food wasn't the only thing that was hard to come by ? lack of proper
income also meant lack of
 medical treatment and attention.

 "...Sometimes you just can't afford to run to a doctor when you need to."

 "It's hard to be able to just have that (a healthy lifestyle) if you don't
have the dollars to fork
 over."

 At the present time, Rideout has put her children in government care, and
is hoping in the future
 she will be able to provide for them.

 According to Rideout, the government has overlooked a major problem that
could eventually add to
 the decaying of society.

 Dr. Dennis Raphael will be speaking on poverty and the social determinants
of health on November
 5 at the Carpenters' Union Hall in Kensington. City of Calgary staff is
invited to the daytime
 presentation while the evening presentation from 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
will be a community
 forum.

 To read more on this issue, visit
http://quartz.atkinson.yorku.ca/QuickPlace/draphael/Main.nsf/.

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