Summary of an oral presentation and poster presentation by Céline Plante, Claudia Blais, Isabelle Larocque, Louis Rochette, Pierre Lejeune, David Dannenbaum, and Jill Elaine Torrie given at Vascular 2013 conference (Montreal, October 16-20th 2013).
BACKGROUND
Eeyou Istchee has nine communities and 15,000 people (in 2008) – 95% of them Cree.
Diabetes rates are high in Eeyouch: in 2009, one adult in five had diabetes. We know that these rates are much higher than in southern Canada, and that the gap is especially wide in younger adults. And we know that having diabetes raises a person’s risk of heart disease and stroke. But these problems are often treated at hospitals outside Eeyou Istchee. So the Cree Health Board does not know for sure how many Cree with diabetes have heart disease or stroke. And it doesn’t know what health services Eeyouch with diabetes are using outside the region.
