During Unit 5, we looked at chronic disease and the burden it places on our healthcare system. I explored how chronic diseases are managed locally, in Alberta, and I spent time looking into osteoarthritis specifically. My focus was on the rate of prevalence of osteoarthritis in Alberta, how it is being managed and how it can be prevented.

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Unit 5 Resources

 

For a full list of references, please visit my Zotero public group here. Below is a selection of pertinent resources for this unit, accompanied by a brief description.

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This report on chronic disease management from Alberta’s auditor general is a great overview of the gaps in chronic disease care in Alberta. In particular, the auditor general notes that care for patients with chronic disease is fragmented, there is no process for identifying these patients, there is no one party that has taken responsibility for chronic disease management, and importantly, there are no assessments of how the province is doing in this area.

Health—Report on Chronic Disease Management—September 2014. (n.d.). Office of the Auditor General, Alberta. Retrieved April 1, 2021, from https://www.oag.ab.ca/reports/oag-health-report-chronic-disease-management-sept-2014/

 

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This document explains what osteoarthritis is, how Canadians are affected (prevalence and incidence rates), what the trends show us, and how it can be managed

Public Health Agency of Canada. (2020, September). Osteoarthritis in Canada. Canada.Ca. https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/phac-aspc/documents/services/publications/diseases-conditions/osteoarthritis/osteoarthritis-factsheet.pdf

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Explore how chronic disease is currently addressed in Canada and why there have been calls for change. Most Canadians turn to their primary health care providers when they are in need of health services – in a very response driven system. Although this worked well for a young population in Canada, many are worried that the system will begin to fail as our population ages. The report also explains the chronic care model, how it works, and highlights several provinces and territories that have chronic disease prevention and management policies in place.

Health Canada (2007, April 19). Chronic Disease Prevention and Management [Transparency - other]. Aem. https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/health-care-system/reports-publications/primary-health-care/chronic-disease-prevention-management.html

 

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This link to the Arthritis Society of Canada allows you to see the impact that arthritis has on Canadians and how it is only expected to get worse as our population ages. From this link you can navigate to specific forms of arthritis for more detailed information on the prevalence rates in Canada, including osteoarthritis.

Arthritis Facts And Figures | Arthritis Society. (n.d.). Retrieved April 1, 2021, from https://arthritis.ca/about-arthritis/what-is-arthritis/arthritis-facts-and-figures

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This study examined the prevalence of disparities in comorbidities in Albertans with osteoarthritis based on whether they lived in rural or urban locations. They also looked at ‘hotspots’ across the country and noted that people living in these areas tended towards lower socioeconomic status and less access to health care services compared to non-hotspots.

Liu, X., Shahid, R., Patel, A. B., McDonald, T., Bertazzon, S., Waters, N., Seidel, J. E., & Marshall, D. A. (2020). Geospatial patterns of comorbidity prevalence among people with osteoarthritis in Alberta Canada. BMC Public Health, 20(1), 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-020-09599-0

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