$2.10 for the public's health

By DR. ELINOR WILSON AND DR. MAUREEN LAW 
Thursday, May 12, 2005 Updated at 12:18 AM EDT

Excerpt:
...According to the Canadian Institute for Health Information, in 2004, Canada spent about $130-billion on health, or more than $10,000 per Canadian household. However, only about 2.1 per cent of our health spending goes to public health. In other words, for every $100 we spend on health in Canada, some pocket change - a toonie and a dime to be specific - goes into public health; for every 100 or so people working on the problem, a couple of lonely souls are working on the public-health side.

What does this mean? It means there are a lot of resources committed to putting out fires, and a relatively small amount of investment to prevent fires. If we were a business, we'd be spending a lot of money on after-sales damage control and warranty work, but relatively little on reducing defects at the source. That means a lot of money treating illness that could have been prevented, as well as heavy losses from absent employees.
...
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20050512.wcomm0512/BNStory/National/

(or, http://tinyurl.com/d6hzz)

Robyn Kalda
Health Promotion Information Specialist
OPC Health Promotion Resource Centre
(416) 408-2249 x226
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