APH Associate Medical Officer of Health Jennifer Loo speaking at yesterday’s news conference along with fellow report writers Jordan Robson and Hilary Cutler

The infant mortality rate in Algoma is significantly higher than the province-wide rate.
That’s one area of focus in a new Community Health Profile Report from Algoma Public Health which has just been released.
In Algoma, the infant mortality rate is 7.5 per one thousand births while the Ontario rate is just 5 per 1-thousand.
Associate Medical Officer of Health Dr. Jennifer Loo says the top causes of infant mortality in the district are sudden death infant syndrome and extremely low birth rate.
Dr. Loo says there are ways to address the issue to improve the outcomes…

One in four women in Algoma smoke during pregnancy—-higher than the provincial rate.
The rate of adolescent pregnancies in Algoma has gone down over time but is still nearly double the Ontario rate.
The full health profile report can be viewed online at the website of Algoma Public Health—-www.algomapublichealth.com.

The rates of hospitalization for those with mental illness and addictions in Algoma District is more than twice the provincial rate and continues to rise.
Hospitalization rates from self harm has shown some improvement since 2010 but it also more than twice the provincial rate.
Algoma’s Associate Medical Officer of Health Dr. Jennifer Loo talks about the challenges in improving those rates…

The report states that nearly 1 in 100 people in Algoma received opioid addiction treatment in 2016 and the number of opioid overdose deaths that year was 15.
The rate of deaths by suicide in the district was nearly twice the province-wide rate—-14.2 deaths per 100-thousand people compared to 8.7 deaths.