Health Status

Overall health is directly connected with income and employment, education and literacy skills, personal health practices, early childhood development, social supports, and physical and natural environments, including housing.

To describe health status we used available statistics related to life expectancy, infant mortality, suicide, weight and physical activity, certain diseases, smoking and crime. Statistics came from the NWT Socio-Economic Scan 2006, the 2005 Nunavut Economic Outlook, and the Annual Report on the State of Inuit Culture and Society 2003/04 and 2004/05.

• Average life expectancy for Nunavummiut males is about seven years less than the national average and for females about 10 years less.
• Years of life lost to unintentional injury or death is three times higher in both territories than the national average.
• Nunavut's infant mortality rate is three times higher than the national average.
• The suicide rate in Nunavut is six times the national average; in the NWT almost twice the national average.
• In Nunavut, only 31.6% of people 12 years and older report they are active or moderately active, compared with 51% in the NWT and for the national average. In 2000, 30.7% of Nunavummiut were overweight and 23% were obese.
• Nunavut has high rates of tuberculosis, lung cancer and low respiratory tract infections.
• In 2003, 65% of Nunavummiut over 15 years old smoked.
• Nunavut's violent crime rate is more than eight times the national average; the NWT's is about seven times the national average. For both territories, property crime rate is almost two times the national average.

Infrastructure

Infrastructure includes things such as transportation, housing and communications systems. Infrastructure is an important part of the economic, social and cultural context.

Adequate housing is a major infrastructure gap in Nunavut and the NWT. Lack of basic human needs such as adequate housing affects the overall outlook for economic, social and cultural well-being. The Nunavut Ten-Year Inuit Housing Action Plan states that Nunavut needs 3,000 new units to meet existing demands and another 270 per year to meet the needs of the growing population.

In the NWT, small communities have the greatest housing need. The 2004 NWT Community Survey states that 30.3% of homes in small communities have core housing needs, compared to 11.3% of homes in Hay River, Fort Smith and Inuvik, and 9.1% of Yellowknife homes.

A growing northern population puts pressures on infrastructure other than housing, such as municipal water, sewer, garbage, energy production and transmission, and education and recreation facilities. As well as new infrastructure, both territories need to replace older infrastructure that is near or past the end of useful life, and try to meet new safety codes and/or energy efficiency standards.

Economic impacts of capital infrastructure projects are limited in the north, especially in Nunavut. Most of the materials and much of the labour are imported and most of the spending leaves the territory. Government spending on goods and services has much greater impact on the local economy – more money lands in the pockets of northern residents.