Board meeting notes, March 11, 2009

10 Mar 2009

Queen’s Park’s spring budget needs to include a $100-a month allowance for adults on social assistance to cover the cost of healthy foods, the local board of health says.

The Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit is joining a growing number of voices calling for the supplement to the basic needs allowance.

In a letter to Finance Minister Dwight Duncan, board chairman Dennis Roughley argues that the cost of helping people maintain adequate nutrition will be much less than the cost of treating chronic and infectious diseases, low birth weight in babies and other conditions that can be affected by poor diet. The health unit’s annual Nutritious Food Basket Survey has repeatedly shown that a nutritious diet based on the recommendations in Canada’s Food Guide, is often out of reach of low income individuals and families.

Medical Officer of Health Dr. Charles Gardner acknowledged that the allowance is something the anti-poverty lobby has been calling for with increasing vigour – and it would represent an important step in securing the health of individuals and families in the lowest income brackets in our region. The social assistance supplement for food is just one part of a broader health unit strategy to address a variety of social inequities that are known to influence health, Dr. Gardner told the board. Broadly referred to as social and economic determinants of health, they include:

• access to education, meaningful employment and sufficient income,

• secure access to basic material needs – living wage, housing and transportation,

• access to social networks and supports,

• early child development – prenatal factors, positive parenting, secure and stimulating environment.

Current efforts will focus on local research and best use of health unit skills to meet needs.

Most deaths due to injuries are both preventable and predictable, yet they are behind more deaths among people under 45 than all other causes combined. And motor vehicle collisions are responsible for more injury related deaths, particularly among males, than any other cause, a new local report on road safety shows.

The latest Health Status report from the health unit finds that fatigue, distractions, daily distance travelled, and speeding are among the factors that may contribute to the number of collisions. The study also reveals that the rate of deaths in collisions involving snowmobiles or ATVs in Simcoe and Muskoka is twice the provincial average.

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