Rural Atlantic Canadians buck trend, lead healthier lives than city folk

A 30-year study tracking the health of people in Atlantic Canada has just started releasing results, and is already delivering surprises.

Atlantic PATH aims to uncover how genetics, the environment, lifestyle, and behavior contribute to the development of chronic diseases. It has recruited 35,000 participants for the study, and will track those elements over the next three decades.

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One of the first papers simply looks at the current health and lifestyle of participants, separating them into rural and urban groups. Contrary to what has been seen in other parts of the world, rural Atlantic Canadians are the healthier group.

"When compared to urban participants, rural residents were significantly less likely to be regular or habitual drinkers, be obese, and were significantly more likely to be highly active," wrote study authors Cynthia C. Forbes and Zhijie Michael Yu.

And that was a big surprise.

"It's very surprising because when you look at all the published literature it's exactly the opposite," said Atlantic PATH executive director Jason Hicks.

Open data

Further research could uncover what it is that makes rural residents in Atlantic Canada different from people in other parts of the world.

Atlantic PATH will be opening up its data to researchers from outside the group, to get the most benefit from what is gathered.

The initial findings were not all good news. The study found 71 per cent of participants are overweight or obese, and one third were suffering from at least one chronic condition.

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