Stephen Rees's blog

The story comes from Jesse Johnson at the CBC.

Residents have higher rates of chronic disease, are more to likely smoke and their life expectancy is well below the rest of the region.

…lack of access to health services and an aging population both contribute to the problem.

We’re  looking at a population that has moved from the urban areas to the more rural area of Hope in their retirement age to support a lifestyle they are seeking, in terms of outdoor activities.

The article goes on to discuss initiatives the Health Authority is taking to improve access health care services.

But the best thing we can do for the people of Hope – and the rest of the Fraser Valley – is not treatment but prevention. Prevention is always better than cure.

There is currently an air quality advisory in the region due to the fire at Harrison Lake. Not just the smoke but the haze – seen as a white mist over mountains – due to ground level ozone which forms in sunlight due to reactions between pollutants from burned fuels  – VOCs, NOx and SOx. Absent wildfires, these pollutants here are mainly due to the use of fossil fuel fired internal combustion engines in our transportation system. For many years we relied on AirCare to keep that in check, but now we rely on the computers that control our engines. But that is just a bandaid – what we really need to do is reduce the use of cars for most of our transport needs. We aren’t doing badly – in the city of Vancouver half the trips now are taken by noncar modes – walking, cycling and transit. The rest of of the region has been encouraged to increase car use, by widening the freeway and spending heavily on making car use the most favoured mode. Strangling resources for transit was a deliberate provincial policy which, we must now trust, will be reversed.

The air pollutants released by internal combustion engines in Metro Vancouver get blown up the valley by the prevailing winds. As the valley narrows, and the sides get steeper, the concentrations get worse. Air quality concerns are actually fairly low in Vancouver, but are significant in Hope. Telling people to limit their activities and stay indoors helps relieve immediate symptoms – difficulty breathing – but makes other serious health problems worse – heart disease, diabetes, and obesity – the top three killers in our society.  The people who really suffer from bad air quality in the Valley are the agricultural workers who have no choice about strenuous activity outdoors on hot, sunny days.

The more we can be successful in increasing transit mode share, plus walking and cycling, the better the health outcomes will be, and the lower the demands for treatment. The cost benefit analysis for this kind of policy approach seems to  be absent. Our obsessions have been with environmental assessments of major projects, but these have often been deliberately slanted to “reducing congestion” – which is a chimera.

“Adding highway lanes to deal with traffic congestion is like loosening your belt to cure obesity” – Lewis Mumford. (source)