Smoking rates higher in northeastern Ontario, according to new Public Health Ontario data
CBC
The Timiskaming Health Unit district in northeastern Ontario has the highest smoking rates in the province.
According to Public Health Ontario's latest numbers, which cover 2019 and 2020, 22 per cent of people in the Timiskaming region smoke. Ontario's smoking rates are 10.1 per cent.
Other parts of northeastern Ontario also have higher smoking rates than the province as a whole.
The North Bay Parry Sound Health Unit district has smoking rates of 13.5 per cent, in the Algoma district they're 16.2 per cent, and in the Porcupine Health Unit district the rates are 20.9 per cent.
Laurel Beardmore, a health promoter with the Timiskaming Health Unit, said the region's more rural, and older population are key contributors to the higher smoking rates.
Michael Chaiton, the director of research for the Ontario Tobacco Research Institute, said smoking rates are generally higher in more rural areas.
"They're also associated with things like education and poverty, which may also be higher in the northern regions," he said.
While rates are higher in northeastern Ontario, they have gone down from previous years. In 2015 and 2016, for example, more than 25 per cent of people in the Timiskaming Health Unit district smoked. Ontario's smoking rates at that time were around 13 per cent.
Chaiton said the COVID-19 pandemic meant health units shifted their focus away from their smoking cessation programs and campaigns for a time.
"We've had some distractions, I think that the public health units in Ontario are kinda back on the job now," he said.
"They were sort of refocused on COVID but they're now returning to thinking about addressing things like cigarette smoking."
Beardmore, of the Timiskaming Health Unit, agrees.
"We're just starting to get back to addressing these issues," she said.
Rob Cunningham, a senior policy analyst with the Canadian Cancer Society, says the province needs to make tobacco less accessible to youth to bring smoking rates down.
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