Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #110525

Rhonda Love, PhD, Department of Public Health Sciences, University of Toronto, 12 Queen's Park Crescent West, Toronto, ON M5S 1A8, Canada, 416-978-7514, rhonda.love@utoronto.ca

Although Canadians experience high levels of health and have a health care system which removes economic barriers to obtaining health care services, there are many health inequalities related to social divisions in the society.

Canada struggles with a poverty rate of around 16% and that poverty rate increases for women and for women who are lone parents, disabled, elderly or otherwise marginalized. In addition, there are high poverty rates among aboriginal people and other racialized groups. Although Canada's rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer and the poverty rate of lone mother families has actually increased, in spite of government promises to eradicate child poverty by the year 2000.

These high poverty rates have implications for health status and access to services for women. In particular, the use of food banks has increased, the poverty rate of lone mother families has increased and experiences of social exclusion have increased. The poverty rate for lone mother families has increased even though women's participation in the work force has increased.

These experiences of increasing poverty, worsening health and increasing disadvantage among racialized and immigrant groups presents health educators, health promoters and anyone working in health and social justice with major obstacles to improving research, policy making, advocacy and service delivery. These problems and current approaches to solutions will be discussed.

Learning Objectives:

• To understand the extent of women's poverty in Canada.
• To understand the relationship between poverty, health status and access to health services in Canada.
• To understand the relevant comparisons between the health of Canadian poor women and poor women in similar countries.

Keywords: Community-Based Health Promotion, Gender

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.