The Personal Health Navigator is available to all Canadian patients. Questions about your doctor, hospital or how to navigate the health care system can be sent to AskLisa@Sunnybrook.ca The Question: How does alcohol consumption affect diabetes? I work with street people who don’t always eat properly. Does it worsen their diabetes? The Answer: Intuitively, you would think that …
Public health officials must find better ways to communicate with parents about the risks and benefits of childhood vaccination, researchers and public health officials agree. That task is particularly challenging in the absence of a national, or a provincial, vaccine surveillance registry because, to target messages effectively, accurate and timely information about vaccination rates and …
Recent events in Ontario have focused public attention on emergency response capacity. Making the case to continue to invest in services and programs available to respond in an emergency is a challenge in the current fiscal climate. Elliot Lake is a picturesque mining town of 11,000 residents on the north shores of Lake Huron, located …
In the last decade, efforts to improve access to primary care in Ontario have led to major changes to how family doctors practice and are paid. A recent report suggests that these newer models of primary care are not meeting the needs of vulnerable populations, and that Community Health Centres (an older model of care) do …
Three quarters of our daily salt intake comes from prepared and manufactured foods. Experts suggest that the most effective approach to reducing salt consumption in a population is to more actively regulate the amount of salt in prepared foods. However, there is a debate about the best strategy to curb salt intake in Canada. Does …
Salt intake is difficult for individuals to control, because more than three quarter of the salt we consume comes from processed foods, like bread, deli meats and dairy products. Most Canadians are consuming more than double the daily recommended amount of salt. While there is a link between salt consumption and heart disease and stroke, …
Improving access to primary care has been a key priority of the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care for the past decade. The number of Ontarians who have a regular family doctor has increased dramatically. However, patients who are chronically ill continue to have problems accessing primary care. More family doctors and more rostered …
Healthydebate.ca has run a series of stories on breast cancer screening mammography, stimulated by the recent guidelines from the Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care. This last story focuses on how women and policy makers must balance the benefits and harms of screening mammography. The issues raised in this series are relevant to screening …
Some breast cancers detected by screening mammography are cured and would have led to death had they not been detected early. Other breast cancers detected by screening can be treated just as effectively if diagnosed later, may not have needed treatment at all, or may be so advanced that treatment does not prevent death from …
The Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care recently released recommendations about screening for breast cancer. These recommendations have been criticized by some because they emphasize the results of randomized trials. This article explores the advantages and limitations of randomized trial evidence regarding screening mammography. The recent recommendations by the Canadian Task Force on Preventive …
The results of research on screening for breast cancer with mammography can be presented in ways that make the benefits seem larger or smaller Similarly, the benefits can be described as avoiding deaths from breast cancer or avoiding deaths from any cause Part of the debate about the benefits of screening mammography may be related …
In medical journals, doctors and scientists continue to debate the relative benefits and harms of breast cancer screening for women who are at average risk of developing breast cancer. This debate is not always reflected in screening programs, most of which strongly recommend mammography to average risk women within a certain age bracket. Some experts …
Each year several thousand Canadians die from influenza. Vaccinating health care workers against flu reduces transmission and would protect patients who are most vulnerable. However, only about 40% of hospital staff in Ontario were vaccinated last winter. Is it time for Ontario to make the flu vaccine mandatory for health care workers? Explaining the influenza …
The past ten years have seen a surge of bedbug infestations across North America, with many cities across Canada affected. Although they do not cause or transmit disease, bedbug infestations are often perceived to be a health problem. An effective and efficient bedbug strategy requires coordination among various sectors, including public health, housing, community and …
Smoking is the leading cause of preventable death and disease in Ontario, and is costly to the health care system. From the 1990s into the past decade, Ontario made significant progress in reducing smoking rates. However, smoking rates are no longer declining as steeply. More aggressive action needs to be taken if Ontario wants to …
The frequency of obesity has skyrocketed across Canada, and its treatment is a major challenge to the health care system. Bariatric surgery is an effective treatment for obesity that appears to be good value for money. Although Ontario is expanding bariatric surgery capacity, some are concerned that capacity remains below current needs. What is bariatric …
Colon cancer screening is more effective than breast cancer screening, but uptake in Ontario is still low. Screening more individuals each year would prevent many needless deaths. Nurses can safely and effectively screen patients for colon cancer. Despite this, efforts to increase the number of screening procedures performed by nurses in Ontario are not widespread. …
Walking through the streets of any large city, one sees many homeless people. Nearly two in three have a history of some form of mental illness. Hospitals have become the place where homeless people with serious mental illness go during a crisis, but hospitals are poorly equipped to meet their needs. How can society improve …
Genetic profiles are being offered directly to consumers online for relatively reasonable sums of money. These websites are not yet widely known to Canadian consumers. Doctors and the public need to be educated to better understand what the results of these tests mean. E-commerce has exploded over the past decade, and now you can buy …
Blood glucose test strips are the third most expensive cost for the Ontario Public Drug Program. A study released in 2009 suggests that the Ontario government is unnecessarily spending between $19 and $42 million per year on glucose test strips. However, no changes have yet been made to reduce the use of blood glucose test …