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HUMAN HEALTH AND COMMUNITY WELLNESS

Indicators

To be determined

Current Knowledge

Information on more than 60 statistical measures including human health indicators and individuals' state of health is being collected in the NWT. Most of the information is collected by government agencies for the purpose of monitoring and identifying demographic, population and social trends.

There are only a few monitoring programs which include community wellness, such as the Lutsel K'e monitoring program, which is conducted from a community and traditional knowledge perspective. Two other community wellness monitoring programs related to diamond mining include a collection of health indicators that try to assess overall community wellness.

The Department of Health and Social Services is developing a framework and a list of indicators to monitor population health and well-being. This will be likely be completed in 2006. At present, there is not common approach to measuring human health and wellness in the NWT. Predicting and defining human health and community wellness is problematic for many reasons including: changing societal norms; lack of baseline data; inconsistencies in definitions; annual variability in data; depth of data collection, etc.

In the NWT, in particular, cultural diversity and rapid economic development make monitoring human health and community wellness especially difficult. Some people suggest that human health and community wellness should be two separate categories for measurement. Discussion on this VC continues and it will be refined.

Current Monitoring

  • Traditional Knowledge Study on Community Health: Community-Based Monitoring - Lutsel K'e Dene First Nation
  • Annual Report on Community Health and Well Being - BHP Diamonds Inc.
  • Archeological Site Investigations - BHP Diamonds Inc.
  • Socio-economic Monitoring - Diavik Diamond Mines Inc.
  • Employment and Unemployment Estimates - Government of the Northwest Territories (GNWT)
  • NWT Health Status Report 1999 - GNWT
  • Beaufort Region Cumulative Monitoring Indicator Catalogue - Energy, Mines and Resources Secretariat
  • NWT Family Violence Database - GNWT
  • NWT Suicide Database - GNWT
  • NWT Crime and Justice Estimates - GNWT
  • National Population Health Survey - GNWT

Gaps and Recommendations

At this initial stage of the process, gaps - in terms of research needed to monitor or measure VCs - cannot be determined, since the VCs have not been identified.

This summary is based on: A Preliminary State of Knowledge of Valued Components for the NWT Cumulative Impact Monitoring Program (NWT CIMP) and Audit. February 1, 2002; updated February 2005.

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