Healthy Futures for BC Families – FACT SHEET

Healthy Futures for BC Families includes 45 proposed actions in nine policy areas – below is an example from each:

CHRONIC DISEASE AND DISADVANTAGED POPULATIONS: Work with First Nations communities and leaders to create a plan for increasing Aboriginal representation in the workforce in terms of full-time employment, management positions and professional workplaces.
FRAMEWORK FOR ACTION AND RESPONSIBILITY: Establish targets for improving health outcomes of British Columbians of lower socio-economic status with a Minister assigned responsibility for coordinating inter-ministerial efforts.
EARLY CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT AND CARE: Provide quality and affordable early childhood development, parenting, pre-natal health and family wellness services and programs ensuring that priority is given to vulnerable children. Universal childcare delivered by early childhood educators should be considered as the ultimate goal.
EDUCATION AND LITERACY: Commit additional human resources to support the early identification of students who may withdraw from their education prior to graduation. Provide tutoring and mentoring programs delivered by teachers interested and trained to work with at-risk students.
INCOME SECURITY: Establish a Poverty Reduction Strategy
HOUSING: Ensure that emergency, transition and affordable housing meet the needs of specific populations including women and children fleeing violence, families, seniors, youth and those with mental health problems and addictions.
FOOD SECURITY: Review agricultural policies with input from small scale producers to ensure that policies promote local food production and direct purchasing from consumers.
SUPPORTIVE ENVIRONMENT: Provide resources for communities to audit and design or retro-fit their communities according to age-friendly guidelines.
TRANSPORTATION POLICY GOAL: Establish a task force to explore innovative public transportation systems that can serve rural and remote populations and others with mobility challenges.

• Provincial governments with formal poverty reduction plans include: Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador.
• Over one third of families parented by single mothers are low income.
• Children in chronic poverty have rates of asthma that are over 30% higher than the Canadian averages.
• Chronic conditions affect about 34% of people in BC and consume about 80% of the combined physician payments, PharmaCare and acute (hospital) care budgets (BC Health Services Plan).
• 80% of heart disease and 50% of cancers are preventable.
• Social and economic factors are estimated to account for 50% of the impact on health outcomes, whereas biology and genetics are estimated at 15% according to a 2001 Report from the Senate. 
• Lower income British Columbians are more than twice as likely as higher income citizens to be overnight hospital patients.
• It is estimated that approximately $4 billion in avoidable health care costs annually in BC come from a failure to correct the socio-economic gap in health status.
• 58% of Canada’s Seniors would be poor without Old Age Security / Guaranteed Income Supplement (and its provincial equivalents) and the Canada and Quebec pension plans. These programs reduce low income among seniors by 90%.
• BC Healthy Living Alliance consulted with 360 representatives from 202 groups in a series of policy discussions and meetings in the north, interior, lower mainland and Vancouver Island.
• 77% of Canadian mothers work but there are few quality child education and care spaces. In BC, there are child care spaces for just 5% of children under three and just 30% for children between three and five.
• Poverty can lead to poor nutrition, poor parental health and parental depression.