Laurent Martel

Gender differences in disability-free life expectancy for selected risk factors and chronic conditions in Canada.

SUMMARY This article shows how mortality and morbidity patterns differ for women and men 45 years of age and older. The impact on disability-free life expectancy was calculated for selected risk factors and chronic conditions: low income, low education, abnormal body mass index, lack of physical activity, smoking, cancer, diabetes, and arthritis. For each factor, the expected number of years free of disability was calculated for men and women using multi-state life tables. In terms of disability-free life expectancy, the greatest impacts on affected women were for diabetes (14.1 years), arthritis (8.8 years), and physical inactivity (6.0 years), while for affected men, the greatest impacts were for diabetes (10.5 years), smoking (6.9 years), arthritis (6.5 years), and cancer (6.4 years). The implications of these results are discussed from the perspective of developing programs designed to improve population health status.

Socio-Demographic Factors Associated with the Use of Formal and Informal Support Networks among Elderly Canadians

The last two decades have seen population aging become one of the major reasons put forward when discussing the need to adjust social policies to a changing society where public expenditures are expected to increase substantially. Of course, public retirement schemes and health care services are the two programs that are more likely to be targeted by these discussions. This study focuses on the possible effects of changing demographic trends on the use of home care services by examining characteristics associated with the use of different sources of these services for the elderly population.

Demosim, Statistics Canada’s Microsimulation Model for Projecting Population Diversity

Owing to persistent low fertility and strong immigration, Canada has seen its population rapidly change in recent decades. Thus, from one census to the next, there has been an increase in the proportion of persons born abroad, persons whose mother tongue is neither English nor French, and persons belonging to visible minority groups as defined by the Employment Equity Act, to cite only a few examples. However, this change is not occurring at the same pace throughout the country: while very rapid in the largest metropolitan areas, especially Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal where most newcomers settle, it has thus far remained quite modest elsewhere in Canada.