The Northwestern Health Unit is concerned with the amount of preventable disease caused by alcohol.
To that end, the Health Unit has developed a dashboard for alcohol-related trends.
Medical officer of Health Dr. Kit Young Hoon says the prevalence of alcohol-related disease in northwestern Ontario is far above the provincial average.
“Generally, it shows that our Emergency Room visits for conditions entirely caused by alcohol are more than 13 times higher than they provincial rate,” explains Dr. Young Hoon.
“Hospitalizations for conditions caused entirely by alcohol are 5 times higher than the provincial rate.”
Dr. Young Hoon adds that alcohol causes a lot of health-related problems, especially in our region.
“We have not focused on alcohol for some time, but we thought it would be a good opportunity to do this because our last report did show that alcohol was having a significant impact on health. So, this report looks at Emergency Room visits, hospitalizations from conditions entirely caused by alcohol.”
Dr. Young Hoon adds that alcohol is also responsible for a number of non-medical issues such as intimate partner violence, assaults and injuries, theft, motor vehicle accidents, unwanted pregnancies, self-harm, and suicide.
