Health indicators – who is the best?

The CIHI report https://secure.cihi.ca/free_products/health_indicators_2012_en.pdf  introduced in the previous blog provides the richness of information that can be a guidance for health improvement.  Of course, improvement to what is a good question since currently immortality is a fantasy.  So here are the best of the health regions, best province and how much better could the worst of the provinces and regions do if they were to get to the best practices in Canada.  Except for the one rate to celebrate, the territories were omitted from the analysis and oftentimes have poorer health indicators than the worst health region.  PEI is treated as a single health region as well as a province.

Indicator	Best region and rate	Best province and rate	Improvement if worst province could align with the best	Improvement if the worst region could align with the best
Age standardized mortality (per 100,000 population)	Richmond BC (155)	BC  (244)	a reduction of 66 or 21% of the current rate)	a reduction of 211 or 58% of the current rate
Potential years of life lost	Richmond BC 2707	Ontario 4182	A reduction of 1849 or of 31%	A reduction of 5017 or of 65% of the current rate
Cancer incidence		Alberta 399.8	186.6 or 32%
Youth body mass index (25 or greater)		BC 16.4	Reduction of 15.8 or 52% of the current level
High blood pressure		Yukon, NWT and Nunavut with ranges of 9-11.6	Current highest level is 24.6% of population
Injury hospitalization per 100,000 population	Central ON 306	Ontario 407	302 or 48% reduction to be achieved	A reduction of 790 or 71% of the current rate
Acute myocardial infarction hospitalization	South Vancouver Island BC 118	BC 163	157 or a 48% reduction	260 or a reduction of 69%
Smoking		BC 17.4	5.8 or a 25% reduction
5+ fruits or vegetables per day		Quebec 50.4%	21.8% or a 76% increase required
Potentially avoidable mortality	Richmond BC 113	BC 172	46 or a 20% reduction	159 or a 58% reduction
Avoidable mortality from preventative causes	Richmond BC 70	Ontario 110	33 or a 23% reduction	114 or a 61% reduction

The point here is consistently the better to do provinces are 25% better than those that are not so well off, and the better health region are a whopping 3 times worse off than those that are well off.  To which the reminder must be issued that the rates for the territories are often worse that the poorest of the health regions on many indicators.

In Canada, inequity is alive.  The CIHI report begins to at least unmask some of the disparities that are in place at home.