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ICES and Association recommendations aligned on need for increased diabetes support in Ontario
TORONTO, ON (April 24, 2012) – The report released today by the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES), Regional Measures of Diabetes Burden in Ontario, further supports the Canadian Diabetes Association’s call to address rising diabetes prevalence in Ontario through enhanced prevention, and serious complications of the disease through optimized care and access to services.
The findings of the ICES report including the rapid rise in diabetes prevalence, geographical variances in access to diabetes programs and services and the need to focus on populations at risk, are consistent with those of the Association’s Ontario Diabetes Cost Model and Diabetes: Canada at the Tipping Point reports as well as its Clinical Practice Guidelines.
The Ontario Diabetes Cost Model estimates that nearly 1.2 million people in Ontario are living with diabetes (8.3 per cent of the population). This number is expected to increase to nearly 2 million (11.9 per cent of the population) by 2020. The prevalence of diabetes in Ontario is higher than the national average.
“Right now, we estimate that one in four Ontarians are living with diabetes or prediabetes,” said Jim Casey, Executive Director of the Canadian Diabetes Association, Central and Eastern Canada. “If action is not taken, we’ll be facing numbers closer to one in three Ontarians by the end of the decade.”
To address the rising burden of diabetes in Ontario, the Canadian Diabetes Association has called for the government to refocus the Ontario Diabetes Strategy to implement a broad-based healthy weights strategy; a targeted populations at-risk strategy; and a secondary diabetes prevention strategy.
“Ontario must invest in prevention programs that target at-risk populations to ensure people living with diabetes have access to the tools they need,” said Casey. “This will help people living with diabetes to better manage their disease to prevent or delay serious complications such as heart disease, stroke, kidney disease, blindness, amputations and depression.”
Key factors driving the increase in prevalence over the next decade include population growth, an aging population, rising obesity and overweight rates, sedentary lifestyles and changing demographics.
The economic burden of diabetes in Ontario is estimated to be $4.9 billion in 2010 (measured in 2009 dollars). This cost is expected to increase by 42 per cent in the next decade to more than $6.9 billion by 2020 – the second highest increase in Canada over the next decade.
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About the Canadian Diabetes Association
The Canadian Diabetes Association is a registered charitable organization, leading the fight against diabetes by helping people with diabetes live healthy lives while we work to find a cure. Our professional staff and more than 20,000 volunteers provide education and services to help people in their daily fight against the disease, advocate on behalf of people with diabetes for the opportunity to achieve their highest quality of life, and break ground towards a cure. Please visit diabetes.ca, join us on facebook.com/CanadianDiabetesAssociation, follow us on Twitter @DiabetesAssoc, or call 1-800-BANTING (226-8464).
For more information or to schedule an interview, please contact:
Katie Ostler
Communications Associate, Ontario
Canadian Diabetes Association
Tel: (416) 408-7088
Cell: (416) 407-2177
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