Geography influences heart disease death rates
Updated Wed. Jul. 5 2006 8:57 AM ET
CTV.ca News Staff

A landmark study that examined the influence of geography on heart disease
patients has found where you live makes a big difference.

"When you have 33 million people spread over 6,000 miles, you can't have the
same facility in every place," said Dr. Jack Tu, Canadian Cardiovascular
Outcomes Research Team (CCORT) Atlas Editor and Senior Scientist at the
Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences...

The CCORT released the collective findings of the Canadian Cardiovascular
Atlas on Tuesday, with one conclusion being that people out West are more
heart-healthy.

"In general, what we found in Canada is that there's an 'East to West
gradient' in terms of the death rate from heart disease - that you're more
likely to die in Eastern Canada as opposed to Western Canada," Tu said
Wednesday morning, appearing on CTV's Canada AM.

The so-called Atlas is the largest report of its kind to examine the effects
of geography on the risk factors, treatments, and outcomes of heart disease
for the more than 1.2 million Canadians suffering from the condition...

Tu said that the regions that have the highest heart disease mortality rates
are those with the highest incidence of traditional cardiac risk factors.
Those factors include "really high smoking rates, really high obesity rates,
higher rates of diabetes and hypertension," Tu said.

"Poverty is also an important factor when it comes to heart disease. In
general, the regions that have higher incidence of risk factors also tend to
be poorer on average."

...The study found broader determinants of health, such as employment status
and education levels, helped explain regional disparities.

"Given that CVD is the leading cause of death in Canada, we believe that
additional investments in understanding these determinants are vital towards
improving the cardiac health status of Canada and could potentially yield
large health benefits to Canadians across the country," the study said...

See: http://tinyurl.com/msh5y

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