9am-10am pacific | 12 noon – 1pm eastern
Non communicable diseases including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer are the leading causes of morbidity and mortality among populations in high income countries. The rapid increase of overweight and obesity among Canadians and its associated consequences, including hypertension and diabetes is a major public health problem, and threaten to halt the declines in cardiovascular disease deaths Canada has experienced in the past 30 years.
Knowledge gaps exist regarding the impact of the built environment in relation to individual risk factor development, and the variation of these built environments across Canada by region and rurality. In order to address these gaps in our knowledge, we convened the Canadian Alliance of Healthy Hearts and Minds – a prospective cohort of men and women recruited from existing cohorts in Canada and through recruitment of a new First Nations cohort study.
As part of the knowledge translation plan of the Canadian Alliance for Healthy Hearts and Minds project, we developed and released an on-line, interactive map of 2,074 communities across Canada that conveys the information from our community contextual health audits. In this presentation, I will describe the development of the map, and describe how to access and use the tools embedded in the map.
Russell de Souza is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence, and Impact at McMaster University. He is a registered dietitian, and his research focuses on dietary patterns, health, and how the food environment shapes food choice and risk of cardiovascular disease.
