Genuine Progress Index for Atlantic Canada Indice de progrs vritable Atlantique RECREATION: LIFES HI

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Genuine Progress Index for Atlantic CanadaIndice
de progrès véritable - AtlantiqueRECREATION -
LIFES HIDDEN TREASUREOak Island, Nova Scotia,
15 November, 2003
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Define hidden by opposites

• DISCOVERED - Goal unearth treasure - help
  others discover gold
• GETS ATTENTION funding, policy,
  public/election issue
• Recreations hidden companions - e.g. health (vs
  sickness) , voluntary work, environment / natural
  resources, equity

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Why is recreation hidden? - Recreations Bottom
Lines

• 1) Free time
• 2) Voluntary work
• 3) Balance (Suzuki)
• The power of indicators
• reflect values,
• determine policy agenda,
• affect behaviour (students)

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Our key indicator of wellbeing

• If the economy is growing we are better off
• More work hours make economy grow
• More stress, more Prozac sales (4 billion), more
  cigarette sales, more fast food - Anything can
  make economy grow - Juan
• More is always better vs balance
• Free time has no value

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And its companion messages...

• Natural resource depletion makes economy grow
• Economy can grow if poverty, inequity grow
  Affects recreation (lifestyle interventions
  ineffective for low-income)
• Volunteer, unpaid work no value. So 12.3
  decline no policy attention
• Fossil fuels, GHGs make economy grow

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And health....

• Sickness growth industries. Canada spends 103
  billion/year treating sickness - up by 6.5 /year
  since 1998 double 1980
• Diabetes up 5-fold globally. Lilly Youve got
  to be in diabetes
• vs. Prevention 2 of health budget
• Current measures send misleading signals to
  policy makers, public

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What are the consequences of all this for
recreation?

• Volunteer time, free time (especially for women)
  getting squeezed out - 6 decline in N.S.
  womens free time (next figures 2006!)
• N.S. 30,000 fewer volunteers than in 1997
  decline of 10.7
• Statcan working moms 75 hour week Time
  poverty vs balance All un-noticed!

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Total Work Hours, Couple with Children, Canada

• 1900 2000
• Male, paid work 58.5 42
• Female, paid work -- 36.5
• Male, unpaid work N.A. 22.4
• Female, unpaid work 56 33.6
• Total work hours 114.5 134.5

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And what does this imply about the Nova Scotia we
are leaving our children?
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Should see recreation as investment in our future

• But childhood obesity, asthma, physical
  inactivity are up. Volunteer decline -gt sport
  coaching, after-school recreation
• Depleted natural world (fish, forests, species),
  global warming
• Materially better off but more secure?
• Recreation, health promotion as investment in
  human capital

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What are the costs of lifes treasure remaining
hidden?

• 90 greater chance of heart disease if inactive.
  1/3 of heart disease could be avoided if all Nova
  Scotians were physically active.
• 20 stroke, hypertension, colon cancer, type 2
  diabetes, 27 of osteoporosis, 11 breast cancer,
  could be eliminated by becoming physically
  active.

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Costs of physical inactivity

• Inactivity costs NS 107m (direct) 247m
  (indirect) 350m/year
• More than 700 Nova Scotians die prematurely every
  year because they are physically inactive 9 of
  all early deaths.
• Every year 2,200 potential years of life are lost
  in N.S. due to physical inactivity

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The Good News Annual Savings from 10 Reduction
in Physical Inactivity (millions)

• Hospital, physician, drug costs 4.6
• Total direct health costs 7.5
• Economic productivity gains 17.2
  (avoided premature death and disability)
• Total annual economic savings 24.7
• Lives saved / year 50
• Years of life gained / year 156

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Costs of obesity

• Obesity 56 diabetes 2 in NS attributable to
  obesity 37 hypertension 22 heart disease 24
  gallbladder disease stroke, cancers
  (colorectal, endometrial, post-menopausal
  breast), arthritis etc.
• Obesity costs NS health care system 120m/year
  (6.8 budget) 140m indirect productivity
  losses 260m
• 39 N.S. overweight (BMI gt27)

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53 Nova Scotians are inactive Only 21
physically active(CCHS) (3 kcal/kg/day), age
12, 2000/01 ()
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T R E N D S Nova Scotia Remains Stagnant

• exercising regularly in NS stagnant. Dramatic
  decline in physical activity by men. Obesity
  more than doubled
• All 4 Atlantic provinces rank well below Canadian
  average.
• Atlantic Canadian men now have a significantly
  higher risk of heart disease.

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Obesity Trends Among U.S. AdultsBRFSS, 1985
Source Mokdad A H, et al. J Am Med Assoc
199928216, 200128610.
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Obesity Trends Among U.S. AdultsBRFSS, 1986
Source Mokdad A H, et al. J Am Med Assoc
199928216, 200128610.
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Obesity Trends Among U.S. AdultsBRFSS, 1987
Source Mokdad A H, et al. J Am Med Assoc
199928216, 200128610.
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Obesity Trends Among U.S. AdultsBRFSS, 1988
Source Mokdad A H, et al. J Am Med Assoc
199928216, 200128610.
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Obesity Trends Among U.S. AdultsBRFSS, 1989
Source Mokdad A H, et al. J Am Med Assoc
199928216, 200128610.
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Obesity Trends Among U.S. AdultsBRFSS, 1990
Source Mokdad A H, et al. J Am Med Assoc
199928216, 200128610.
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Obesity Trends Among U.S. AdultsBRFSS, 1991
Source Mokdad A H, et al. J Am Med Assoc
199928216, 200128610.
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Obesity Trends Among U.S. AdultsBRFSS, 1992
Source Mokdad A H, et al. J Am Med Assoc
199928216, 200128610.
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Obesity Trends Among U.S. AdultsBRFSS, 1993
Source Mokdad A H, et al. J Am Med Assoc
199928216, 200128610.
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Obesity Trends Among U.S. AdultsBRFSS, 1994
Source Mokdad A H, et al. J Am Med Assoc
199928216, 200128610.
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Obesity Trends Among U.S. AdultsBRFSS, 1995
Source Mokdad A H, et al. J Am Med Assoc
199928216, 200128610.
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Obesity Trends Among U.S. AdultsBRFSS, 1996
Source Mokdad A H, et al. J Am Med Assoc
199928216, 200128610.
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Obesity Trends Among U.S. AdultsBRFSS, 1997
Source Mokdad A H, et al. J Am Med Assoc
199928216, 200128610.
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Obesity Trends Among U.S. AdultsBRFSS, 1998
Source Mokdad A H, et al. J Am Med Assoc
199928216, 200128610.
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Obesity Trends Among U.S. AdultsBRFSS, 1999
Source Mokdad A H, et al. J Am Med Assoc
199928216, 200128610.
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Obesity Trends Among U.S. AdultsBRFSS, 2000
Source Mokdad A H, et al. J Am Med Assoc
199928216, 200128610.
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Obesity Trends Among U.S. AdultsBRFSS, 2001
Source Mokdad A H, et al. J Am Med Assoc
199928216, 200128610.
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Recreation is bigger than physical activity....

• Culture, arts, and more........
• Social supports, social networks key determinant
  of health (Health Canada
• Increases resilience, recovery from illness,
  health

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Costs of overwork

• US 100 billion cost due to work fatigue
  accidents, errors, productivity, health
• Valdez, Chernobyl (300b), 3-Mile Island, Bhopal,
  road accidents (trucking - 50)
• Sleep down 25, 15 clinical insomnia, CVD,
  gastrointenstinal (ulcers 2-8x)
• Family stress shift work 60 divorce

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Time Stress

• Statistics Canada 1999 Longer hours -gt more
  smoking, poor diet, unhealthy weight gain, less
  physical activity
• Working mothers - 75-hour week, (invisible when
  ignore unpaid work - women 2x labour force 2/3
  housework)
• Effect on diet (Harvard longit. study)

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Costs of Under-work

• Unemployment - higher mortality, crime,
  morbidity, poverty, family breakup
• Underemployment - wasted talent
• Stress Overworked and underworked - equal risk
  of heart attack (Japanese study

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Economics as if People did not Matter

• The more we produce and consume, the better off
  we are
• Growing economy healthy, robust economy.
  Shopping is patriotic
• Vs health as balance. Security, health,
  community, environment, free time, volunteerism,
  recreation have no value

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What can we do about this?

• How can we assign free time, volunteerism, health
  their true value?
• How can we give recreation the attention it
  deserves?
• How can we help all Nova Scotia discover lifes
  hidden treasure?

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1) We can change the way we measure progress

• What we measure
• reflects what we value as a society
• determines what makes it onto the policy
  agenda
• influences behaviour (eg students)

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Good indicators can help Nova Scotians

• foster common vision and purpose
• identify strengths and weaknesses
• change public behavior
• hold leaders accountable at election time
• initiate actions that promote wellbeing

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In Genuine Progress Index

• Health, security, free time, education, unpaid
  work (voluntary hhold), have value
• Sickness, crime, disasters, pollution are costs
  so reductions in crime, poverty, GHGs, ecological
  footprint are progress
• Human, social, natural capital valued
• Growing equity signals progress

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Valuing Voluntary Work

• Nova Scotians give 140 million hrs of voluntary
  work/yr 73,000 FTE jobs
• Worth nearly 2 billion /year to NS economy
• Nationwide decline in volunteer work cost
  Canadians 2 billion in lost services in 2000
• Invisible in conventional accounts

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2) New policy initiatives that address underlying
causes

• Learning from the Europeans, rather than compare
  with US US passed Japan with longest hours -
  rapid growth at expense of quality of life
• Scandinavia - family-friendly work top concern
• Germany 6 weeks vacation Denmark 5 1/2

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Making Part-time Work Desirable

• Netherlands 1,370 paid work hours / yr
  Canada 1,732 paid work hours / year
• Non-discrimination law equal hourly pay,
  pro-rated benefits, equal promotion opp.
• Netherlands unemployment 12.2 gt 2.7 -
  Highest rate of part-time in OECD
  - Involuntary part-time 6 lt1/6 Atlantic
  - New bill gives workers right to reduce hrs

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Value/expand free time Danes have 11 hrs more
free time each wk than Canadians

• Source Andrew Harvey, Canadian Time Use in a
  Cross-National Perspective, Statistics in
  Transition, November, 1995

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Sharing the Work Can...

• Reduce unemployment, underemployment and overwork
• Improve work-life-family balance and health
  enhance recreation opportunities
• Increase free time and community service
• Protect the environment, spare the planet from
  over-consumption, natural resource depletion

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3) Recreation and Equity

• Education, income, employment, social networks
  are key determinants of health, recreation
  participation
• Lifestyle interventions effective for higher
  income/education groups, not lower can widen
  inequity, health gap
• Low-income higher rates all risk factors

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If we explicitly value...

• Our free time and true value of recreation
• The time we spend with family and children
• Productive unpaid work done in households
• Our voluntary contributions to community
• Health and Equity
• Then we will naturally explore policy options
  that are currently not on the political agenda

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By including these values in our core measures of
progress...

• We can draw attention to models that
• go beyond superficial coping, stress relief
• can improve health and wellness
• quality of our lives, expand recreational
  opportunities
• and unearth lifes hidden treasures

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Can we do it?Percentage Waste Diversion in Nova
Scotia
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Can it be done?...1900s/1980s...