Does Living in Rural Communities Rather

Institut national de santé publique du Québec I ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This study is an initiative of the Quebec public health association (ASPQ) and could not have been completed without the financial support of the ministère de la Santé et des Services sociaux du Québec (MSSS). The authors would especially like to thank Renald Bujold, President of the ASPQ, for having initiated this study, and the following persons for having facilitated it: Line Mailloux, of the Institut national de santé publique du Québec (INSPQ), for putting the study in its final form; André Charest, of the MSSS, for extracting the data from the various databases; Renaud Dugas, of the Institut de la statistique du Québec, for facilitating access to certain databases, in particular that of the Canadian Community Health Survey; Jean-Guy Bourbonnière, of Statistics Canada, for providing us with the table of correspondences between the Statistical Area Classification and the municipalities of Quebec; Annie Lachance, of MSSS, for her assistance with documentary resources; and lastly, Julie Trudel and Annie Fournier, both of INSPQ, for editing this report. Institut national de santé publique du Québec III SUMMARY For a number of years now, the rural areas of industrialized countries have been going through a major crisis. They are experiencing a massive population exodus, primarily of young people, and are losing a considerable number of jobs, primarily to cities and major metropolitan areas. Some authors even go so far as to talk about the " slow death " of rural communities. Yet in Quebec and the rest of Canada, a significant portion of the population—roughly one in five persons—currently lives in rural communities. Under these circumstances, it seemed legitimate to ask: is living in rural communities rather than cities having an impact on the health and wellness of the rural population? When we began to examine this question, the first thing we realized was that the knowledge developed thus far about the health and wellness of this population was too sparse and too out of date to provide a clear enough picture of the situation. The purpose of the present study has therefore been to describe and illustrate more completely and systematically the health of the people who live in the small, chiefly rural communities of Quebec, and the environment in which they live. This study also provided an opportunity not only to deepen but also to broaden our knowledge of rural communities in …