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Why Aboriginal ActNow BC?
Chronic diseases like cancer, heart disease and diabetes are among the most prevalent health issues in British Columbia -- and they are among the most preventable.
Chronic diseases are frequently the result, often over time, of health-compromising behaviours and risk factors. These factors include tobacco use, physical inactivity, unhealthy eating, obesity, alcohol misuse, and occupational risks.
In 2005, the ActNow BC initiative was launched to address these risk factors and help all British Columbians lead the way in North America in healthy living and physical fitness. BC aims, with the support of ActNow BC programs, to become the healthiest jurisdiction ever to host an Olympic Games, set for Vancouver in 2010. Read more here.
Aboriginal ActNow is specifically focused on Aboriginal peoples in BC, home to the second largest Aboriginal population in Canada. First Nations make up 66%, Métis 30 per cent, and Inuit and others with multiple Aboriginal identity make up the remainder of the total 196,000 people. A young population, the numbers are also growing at more than three times the rate of BC's non-Aboriginal population. Click here for a fact sheet of demographic information.
Yet there is a siginficant gap in the health status of Aboriginal peoples and the rest of the population. In BC, the Provincial Health Officer found in his 2001 report The Health and Well-being of Aboriginal Peoples in British Columbia that:
- standards of living for Aboriginal people were 20 per cent below the provincial average;
- life expectancy rates for Status First Nations was seven years less than for other British Columbians;
- the diabetes rate for Status First Nations was 40 per cent higher than the general population, and
- 40 per cent of Aboriginal young people smoke, more than double the rate of other young people in B.C.
You can read more about Aboriginal health status and access the reports by the BC Provincial Health Officer by clicking here. View the most recent report, released July 2009: Pathways to Health and Healing: 2nd Report on the Health and Well-being of Aboriginal People in British Columbia).
Aboriginal ActNow BC is an important step that can help address the gap between the health status of Aboriginal people and that of the non-Aboriginal population. This gap reflects such historical experiences as residential school trauma, cultural alienation and colonization, as well as poverty, unemployment, inadequate housing, education and access to health services.
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