After much intensive work, Southern Health-Santé Sud has completed its Community Health Assessment (CHA). The CHA is a dynamic, ongoing process undertaken to identify the strengths and needs of a community. It enables community-wide establishment of health priorities and facilitates collaborative action planning directed at reducing health disparities, improving community health status and quality of life.

Coordinated provincially, the Community Health Assessment Network (CHAN) worked collaboratively to structure the document using a common template. This approach will enable Regional Health Authorities (RHAs) to compare data more easily amongst regions, poising health organizations to draw on each other’s learnings and strengths. CHAN is comprised of representatives from all five RHAs within Manitoba, the George and Fay Yee Centre for Healthcare Innovation, the Manitoba Centre for Health Policy, Manitoba Health Seniors and Active Living, CancerCare Manitoba and Healthy Child Manitoba.

“The Community Health Assessment provides a picture of the overall health of people in the region. With this CHA, we focused on indicators that have proven over time to be really good for measuring population health,” shares CEO Jane Curtis. “The data will ensue continued conversations about health equity in our region with a focus to drill down in our data so we can understand what the data mean and how it reflects on the health of different population groups.”

The Southern Health-Santé Sud 2019 CHA illustrates some high-level findings which will form the basis for the next Strategic Health Plan, helping the region plan and deliver the programs and services that are needed:

A Growing, Diverse Population

Tipping the population count at 204,274, Southern Health-Santé Sud has a diverse population. The population has increased by 9% in the past five years, representing the largest percentage of growth in the province. Looking forward, the region has the largest projected growth with an anticipated increase of 25% by 2030.

CHA Paints a Picture of Health, despite increasing rates of some chronic diseases

Southern Health-Santé Sud is one of the healthiest regions in Manitoba, despite increasing rates of some chronic diseases. Life expectancy was among the highest in the province and mortality indicators remained stable over time. The region was significantly better than the provincial average on many health outcomes.  As the population grows and ages, more people are living with some chronic diseases.  A notable finding reflects that with end-stage kidney disease, our region is projected to experience the highest increase in the province for renal therapies by 2024.

Variations and Health Inequities within the Region

Even though Southern Health-Santé Sud has one of the healthiest populations in the province, disparities still exist in different geographical areas and across different population groups. The CHA data explores some of the factors affecting this inequity, such as wide income gaps across the region. Throughout the CHA report, it is clear that many indicators are strongly associated with income. The underlying causes of health inequities are largely social and economic in nature. The actions needed to reduce inequities go beyond the health care system and are vital to improving the health of all Manitobans.

To access the Full Report:

The complete document is available here.

 A French translation of the Executive Summary will be available in early 2020.