The Health of Rural Canadians: A Rural-Urban Comparison of Health Indicators - ARCHIVED

The health of Canada's rural people has gained increased attention over the past few years as studies have shown that the health status of those living in rural and remote regions of Canada is lagging behind that of urban residents. The objective of this analysis is to compare a number of key health indicators between rural and urban regions in Canada to determine if the type of region in which a person lives is associated with the health of the population

The analysis for this report is based on data acquired from Statistic Canada's 2000/01 Canadian Community Health Survey. The survey population is segmented into four types of metropolitan regions (large metro-central, large metro-fringe, mid-sized metro and small metro) and four types of non-metropolitan regions (small cities, towns, rural and northern).

This study finds that the self-rated health of Canadians (those reporting their health as excellent) declines from the most urban regions of the nation to the most rural and remote parts. The research points to personal health risk factors including being overweight (i.e., high body mass index) and smoking as being significantly higher in small town regions, rural regions and northern regions of Canada. In addition, the northern regions of Canada show a significantly higher than average share of the population who have high blood pressure or suffer from major depressive episodes. Rural regions (non-metro-adjacent) and small metropolitan regions have a higher than average prevalence of arthritis/rheumatism, even after standardizing for age.