In my blog post from last week, I mentioned this Globe and Mail article by André Picard who asked the question: “why is tackling poverty not a health priority?”
There is now evidence that poverty reduction strategies actually do improve the health of low-income populations and reduce health disparities. In this original research on Disparities in Chronic Disease Among Canada’s Low-Income Populations, Fang et al. argue that Quebec’s comprehensive anti-poverty strategy – implemented in 2002 – has led to social and health care policies that give its low-income residents significant advantages in chronic disease prevention. They found that while British Columbia is Canada’s healthiest province overall, its low-income residents are not the healthiest. Instead, low-income residents of Quebec have the lowest risk of developing chronic diseases, despite the fact that most social and behavioural risk factors for chronic diseases (i.e. smoking, physical inactivity, poor education, unemployment and lack of home ownership, for example) are significantly more prevalent among low-income residents of Quebec than BC. The authors conclude that chronic disease prevalence is associated with investment in social supports to vulnerable populations – in short, that tackling poverty has significant impacts on chronic diseases and health outcomes.