A sign directing visitors to the emergency department at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario on May 15, 2015 in Ottawa.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
Children and teens living in households without adequate access to food make more doctor and emergency department visits and are admitted to hospital for mental-health issues more often than their peers with a reliable source of food, according to a new studywhose lead author warns that their needs are likely growing amid worsening food insecurity in Canada.
The study, published Monday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ), found that children and teens in food-insecure homes had a 55-per-cent higher prevalence of doctors’ visits and were 74 per cent more likely to end up in hospital for mental or substance-use disorders. The findings were based on health administrative data and survey data from 2005 to 2014.
Since then, the prevalence of food insecurity has only gotten worse, particularly since the pandemic, said Kelly Anderson, a Canada research chair in public mental-health research at Western University and an adjunct scientist at ICES (formerly known as the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences).
“And so we might expect to see stronger effects if we were to repeat the study using more current data,” Dr. Anderson said.
The researchers defined food insecurity as the inability to acquire adequate food because of financial constraints. The most recent Statistics Canada data show that more than 18 per cent of Canadians said they were food insecure in 2021, up from 15.7 per cent in 2020. Among single-parent families, almost 39 per cent were food insecure in 2021, compared with 33.7 per cent the previous year.
The study builds on research showing that, for both adults and children, food insecurity is strongly tied to experiences of poor mental health. It analyzed data for more than 32,300 children and teens in Ontario, including more than 5,200 living in food-insecure households.
The researchers found a disproportionately higher use of health care services for mental and substance-use disorders among the food insecure, driven mainly by visits for neurodevelopmental and mood and anxiety disorders. They also found that the frequency of health care use increased as the severity of the food insecurity worsened.
Dr. Anderson said the data did not capture visits to private psychologists, school counsellors or other mental health care providers. Nor did it include First Nations communities.
In a separate commentary in the CMAJ, Lynn McIntyre, a professor emerita at the University of Calgary and an expert on health equity and food insecurity, said the adverse effects of food insecurity on children’s and teens’ mental health are more likely related to the distress of living in difficult circumstances rather than the lack of specific nutrients or poor diet.
“Household food insecurity is modifiable, and reducing it would surely reduce its related strain on children’s mental health,” Dr. McIntyre wrote, explaining that the only interventions shown to curb household food insecurity are related to income, such as seniors’ pensions and, to some extent, the Canada Child Benefit, not charitable food programs. She added that a universal basic income merits examination.
Jennifer Black, an associate professor of food, nutrition and health at the University of British Columbia, who was not involved in the study, said policy makers should pay attention to the latest findings.
Her own research in the early months of the pandemic found that adults who were worried about having enough food to meet their household needs were more likely to experience worse mental-health outcomes, including anxiety and suicidal thoughts.
The toll food insecurity takes on families is clear, Dr. Black said.
VANCOUVER – Mayors and other leaders from several British Columbia communities say the provincial and federal governments need to take “immediate action” to tackle mental health and public safety issues that have reached crisis levels.
Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim says it’s become “abundantly clear” that mental health and addiction issues and public safety have caused crises that are “gripping” Vancouver, and he and other politicians, First Nations leaders and law enforcement officials are pleading for federal and provincial help.
In a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Premier David Eby, mayors say there are “three critical fronts” that require action including “mandatory care” for people with severe mental health and addiction issues.
The letter says senior governments also need to bring in “meaningful bail reform” for repeat offenders, and the federal government must improve policing at Metro Vancouver ports to stop illicit drugs from coming in and stolen vehicles from being exported.
Sim says the “current system” has failed British Columbians, and the number of people dealing with severe mental health and addiction issues due to lack of proper care has “reached a critical point.”
Vancouver Police Chief Adam Palmer says repeat violent offenders are too often released on bail due to a “revolving door of justice,” and a new approach is needed to deal with mentally ill people who “pose a serious and immediate danger to themselves and others.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024
The Canadian government says it will donate up to 200,000 vaccine doses to fight the mpox outbreak in Congo and other African countries.
It says the donated doses of Imvamune will come from Canada’s existing supply and will not affect the country’s preparedness for mpox cases in this country.
Minister of Health Mark Holland says the donation “will help to protect those in the most affected regions of Africa and will help prevent further spread of the virus.”
Dr. Madhukar Pai, Canada research chair in epidemiology and global health, says although the donation is welcome, it is a very small portion of the estimated 10 million vaccine doses needed to control the outbreak.
Vaccine donations from wealthier countries have only recently started arriving in Africa, almost a month after the World Health Organization declared the mpox outbreak a public health emergency of international concern.
A few days after the declaration in August, Global Affairs Canada announced a contribution of $1 million for mpox surveillance, diagnostic tools, research and community awareness in Africa.
On Thursday, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said mpox is still on the rise and that testing rates are “insufficient” across the continent.
Jason Kindrachuk, Canada research chair in emerging viruses at the University of Manitoba, said donating vaccines, in addition to supporting surveillance and diagnostic tests, is “massively important.”
But Kindrachuk, who has worked on the ground in Congo during the epidemic, also said that the international response to the mpox outbreak is “better late than never (but) better never late.”
“It would have been fantastic for us globally to not be in this position by having provided doses a much, much longer time prior than when we are,” he said, noting that the outbreak of clade I mpox in Congo started in early 2023.
Clade II mpox, endemic in regions of West Africa, came to the world’s attention even earlier — in 2022 — as that strain of virus spread to other countries, including Canada.
Two doses are recommended for mpox vaccination, so the donation may only benefit 100,000 people, Pai said.
Pai questioned whether Canada is contributing enough, as the federal government hasn’t said what percentage of its mpox vaccine stockpile it is donating.
“Small donations are simply not going to help end this crisis. We need to show greater solidarity and support,” he said in an email.
“That is the biggest lesson from the COVID-19 pandemic — our collective safety is tied with that of other nations.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.
HALIFAX – The Nova Scotia government says it could be months before it reveals how many people are on the wait-list for a family doctor.
The head of the province’s health authority told reporters Wednesday that the government won’t release updated data until the 160,000 people who were on the wait-list in June are contacted to verify whether they still need primary care.
Karen Oldfield said Nova Scotia Health is working on validating the primary care wait-list data before posting new numbers, and that work may take a matter of months. The most recent public wait-list figures are from June 1, when 160,234 people, or about 16 per cent of the population, were on it.
“It’s going to take time to make 160,000 calls,” Oldfield said. “We are not talking weeks, we are talking months.”
The interim CEO and president of Nova Scotia Health said people on the list are being asked where they live, whether they still need a family doctor, and to give an update on their health.
A spokesperson with the province’s Health Department says the government and its health authority are “working hard” to turn the wait-list registry into a useful tool, adding that the data will be shared once it is validated.
Nova Scotia’s NDP are calling on Premier Tim Houston to immediately release statistics on how many people are looking for a family doctor. On Tuesday, the NDP introduced a bill that would require the health minister to make the number public every month.
“It is unacceptable for the list to be more than three months out of date,” NDP Leader Claudia Chender said Tuesday.
Chender said releasing this data regularly is vital so Nova Scotians can track the government’s progress on its main 2021 campaign promise: fixing health care.
The number of people in need of a family doctor has more than doubled between the 2021 summer election campaign and June 2024. Since September 2021 about 300 doctors have been added to the provincial health system, the Health Department said.
“We’ll know if Tim Houston is keeping his 2021 election promise to fix health care when Nova Scotians are attached to primary care,” Chender said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
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