07) HIGHER DEATH RATES FOR INUIT INFANTS

(The following article is from the March 1-15, 2010 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)

Inuit infants die at well over three times the rate in southern Canada, according to a new study in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. A second study in the same journal says that 70 per cent of Inuit preschoolers live in homes where there isn't always enough food.

     "Inuit children in Nunavut are faced with health challenges that are more severe than those in Southern Canada due to the socio-economic conditions facing the entire territory," said Dr. Isaac Sobol, the territory's chief public officer of health.

     University of Montreal researcher Dr. Zhong-Cheng Luo looked at all four million births in Canada between 1990 and 2000, and births in 53 predominantly Inuit communities in the Arctic, from Labrador in the east the Mackenzie Delta in the west. After comparing births with deaths in the first year of life, Luo found the mortality rate for Inuit infants was 16.5 per thousand live births - a rate not seen in Southern Canada since 1971 and 3.6 times the Canadian average of 4.6 deaths. More recent information suggests that these trends are not improving.

     The lowest rate was in the Inuvialuit region in the Northwest Territories, at 13.4 deaths per thousand births. The highest rate was in the Nunavik region of northern Quebec, where 18.1 babies out of every thousand die before their first birthday.

     The study also found a high rate of stillbirths, at 1.7 times the Canadian average.

     Luo said many of the deaths are preventable, but also that poverty, overcrowding and generally poor living conditions in the North are taking their toll.

     "Improving socio-economic indicators is of fundamental importance," he said. "That's the root cause. Infant mortality is a mirror of socio-economic conditions."

     For the second study, Grace Egeland of McGill University surveyed 388 households in 16 Nunavut communities in 2007 and 2008. She found that 41 per cent of children between age three and five lived in homes where they either had no food for an entire day or where their parents couldn't afford to feed them at least part of the time. Two-thirds of the parents said there were times when they ran out of food and couldn't afford to buy more. In all, 70 per cent of Nunavut's Inuit children sometimes don't have enough to eat.

     "We had an anticipation that we had a problem with the food security issue, but I didn't realize the extent of it," said Egeland.

     Consequences range from poorer overall health to lower school achievement. One of the consequences is higher rates of obesity, since it's easier to eat high-energy, nutrient-poor foods. "We find that obesity seems to track with food insecurity in developed countries," said Egeland, calling for measures such as higher income support, food banks and milk programs.

     Nunavut funds a variety of food security programs, such as school breakfasts and "Drop the Pop," which encourages people to consume fewer soft drinks.

     "Food security is a public health issue,"said Egeland. "I'm hoping this leads to a really good assessment of health and health policy. Inuit are Canadians too, so let's look after each other."