Rates of chronic diseases help determine both the needs of an area’s residents and their use of treatment services. These rates should be age/gender adjusted to remove effects of different population structures that would affect overall rates of health care use.

This figure illustrates the importance of making comparisons within RHAs; just because a region is “healthy” does not mean all the communities with it are healthy. While the diabetes treatment prevalence rate for the overall Nor-Man RHA significantly differs from the Manitoba average, not all of its sub-regions differ.

RHAs can use such information to pinpoint areas, target possible concerns and possible solutions.

Questions Planners may ask:

1. Why do region and sub-region rates differ from the provincial/state average?

2. Do the area services reflect the health needs of the population in terms of prevention and treatment?

3. How might these differences affect the need for health care?

*For more information on estimating these rates see: Blanchard et al (1997)⁶, Muhajarine et al (1997)⁷ & Robinson et al (1997)⁸.