Population Profile:Health Seeking Behaviours of Participants with and without a History of Cancer

Ellen Sweeney

Two of every five Canadians are expected to develop cancer during their lifetime, and one in four is expected to die as a result. In 2015, this translated to approximately 196,900 new cancer diagnoses in Canada and 78,000 cancer-related deaths (41,000 men and 37,000 women). Atlantic Canada has among the highest rates of cancer in the country (Society’s Steering Committee on Cancer Statistics, 2012; Marrett et al. 2008; Xie et al., 2015). The data collected as part of the Atlantic Partnership for Tomorrow’s Health (Atlantic PATH) cohort study supports this finding by demonstrating high rates of cancer and other chronic disease. Atlantic PATH includes self-reported survey data for over 30,000 participants aged 35-69 from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador (Borugian et al., 2010; Yu et al., 2014). The results of the Atlantic PATH study indicate that 7.6% of participants (n=2371) have been diagnosed with at least one form of cancer.