canada

Disease and Health: Canada

 O' Canada, Our Home and Native Land.

The Gapminder (Fig.1)

As shown in Fig. 1, Canada is in similar position on the graph to many other developed countries in the world, such as: UK, South Korea, New Zealand and Australia. Canada's Life Expectancy (81 years) is very high compared to the rest of the world, 83 (Japan) being the highest and 44 (Zimbabwe and Afghanistan) being the lowest. Also, Canada's IMR (5.7 per 1000) is also fairly low and is similar to Poland, Malaysia and Brunei.

__INFANT MORTALITY RATE __

Current Infant Mortality rate: 7 deaths/ 1,000 live births Trend: From 1990 to 2000 there was a steady decrease of IMR from about 7 to 5 deaths per 1,000 live births. From 2000 to 2006, the IMR has stayed the same.

__LIFE EXPECTANCY __

Current Life Expectancy for Men: 74 years Current Life Expectancy for Women: 80 years

Trend: As shown on the graph, since 1990 Canada's Life Expectancy has increased steadily from 77 to 79 years in 2000, and then it began to pick up some speed and in 2006 Canada ended up with a very high Life Expectancy of 81 years.

__ Leading Causes of Death __
 * Rank || Disease || Number of total deaths by disease || % of total Deaths || Cause ||
 * 1 || Coronary Heart Disease || 41,795 || 22.51% || Degenerative ||
 * 2 || Lung Cancer || 17,591 || 9.47% || Degenerative ||
 * 3 || Stroke || 15,476 || 8.33% || Degenerative ||
 * 4 || Alzheimers/Dementia || 11,000 || 5.92% || Degenerative ||
 * 5 || Lung Disease || 9,807 || 5.28% || Degenerative ||
 * 6 || Diabetes Mellitus || 8,057 || 4.34% || Degenerative ||
 * 7 || Colon-Rectum Cancers || 7,886 || 4.25% || Degenerative ||
 * 8 || Breast Cancer || 5,802 || 3.12% || Degenerative ||
 * 9 || Influenza & Pneumonia || 5,078 || 2.73% || Water/Vector borne ||
 * 10 || Lymphomas || 4,473 || 2.41% || Degenerative ||
 * 11 || Prostate Cancer || 4,161 || 2.24% || Degenerative ||
 * 12 || Suicide || 3,830 || 2.06% || Others ||
 * 13 || Kidney Disease || 3,674 || 1.98% || Degenerative ||
 * 14 || Pancreas Cancer || 3,485 || 1.88% || Degenerative ||
 * 15 || Other Injuries || 2,992 || 1.62% || Accidental ||

The [|World Life Expectancy (Fig. 5)]

__Health of Canada __

Canada has a very high Life Expectancy and a very low IMR compared to the other countries of the world. The main diseases that affect Canada are mostly all degenerative diseases, which is a characteristic of a developed nation, such as Lung Cancer, Breast Cancer, Heart diseases, with some exceptions, such as Influenza & Pneumonia and Suicide. According to Fig. 5, Canada is ranked highly in the alcohol, smoking and obesity percentages. This can be one of the reasons why many of the diseases in Canada are degenerative, many cancers, such as breast cancer (rank 8), colon-rectum cancers (rank 7), and kidney cancers (rank 13) are related to obesity and others, like lung cancer (rank 2) are related to smoking habits. Looking at the health of Canada, we can conclude that Canada has a very high level of development. However, if we want to even more improve the health of this nation, the government should provide more mandatory vaccinations to decrease the Influenza & Pneumonia (rank 9) rate, support quiting smoking to reduce the rate of lung cancers (rank 2), or provide knowledge about managing stress or anti-discrimination in the education systems to reduce the number of suicides, etc.

Patty♥