Item - 2019.HL9.1

The Board of Health:

1.  Requested the federal and provincial Ministries of Health and Toronto-based parties developing Ontario Health Teams to prioritize the collection and use of socio-demographic and race-based data and to commit to developing and sharing health equity and anti-oppression strategies.

The Acting Manager, Surveillance and Epidemiology, Toronto Public Health, gave a presentation on T.O. Health Check: An Overview of the Health of Toronto's Population.

Toronto Public Health (TPH) is responsible for assessing and reporting on the health status of the city's population. Similar to how a clinician uses a diagnosis to develop a treatment plan, a health status assessment contributes to a body of information that is used by public health to develop strategic goals to achieve its mandate to improve the health of all who live in Toronto. The T.O. Health Check report provides an overview of the city's health status using available and relevant local data to help understand and inform the collective health needs of Torontonians. A wide array of population health indicators are included and organized by areas of public health concern. Results for Toronto are compared over time or to other regions and health inequities are highlighted.

This staff report provides an overview of the key findings of T.O. Health Check; full details can be found in Attachment 1. The T.O. Health Check report reveals both positive and negative results with respect to the health of Torontonians. On the positive side, 62 percent of Torontonians rate their health as very good or excellent, a result that is at the higher end of the range for health units in Ontario. Life expectancy is also higher in Toronto than in the rest of Ontario, with women typically living to age 86 and men to age 82. However, health outcomes are not the same for everyone. Health inequities exist in the city, and some populations fare worse in a number of areas of health. For example, people with lower incomes are at greater risk for chronic diseases and higher rates of premature mortality.

The purpose of T.O. Health Check is to provide a foundation to guide strategic discussions toward the public health goals of improving health and reducing health inequities. TPH is actively working with allied health and other partners who have the potential to impact the health of the city to develop a comprehensive strategy for more rigorous data collection and analysis to further these efforts.