Budget Bulletin: Investing Today for a Healthier Future

The government of Nova Scotia is investing an additional $3.6 million to improve the long-term health and well-being of Nova Scotians. The new funding brings the total budget for the Office of Health Promotion to $18.5 million, a 24 per cent increase over 2003-04.

Most of the new funding will be invested directly into helping individuals, families, and communities to improve their health. This includes financial assistance for low-income families to register children in sport and recreation programs, funding for community health boards to encourage grassroots prevention and health promotion activities, and more help for people who want to quit smoking.

Despite improvements and more spending on health care each year, Nova Scotians continue to rank among the worst in Canada in terms of health. Disease and injury rob tens of thousands of people of their quality of life and productivity and cost the Nova Scotia health-care system and economy billions of dollars each year.

Alarming trends in inactivity and obesity among children warn that the situation will continue to get worse. Government is committed to reversing this trend by giving parents the tools and supportive environments they need to help their children be healthier. Investing in healthier children today is one of the most important investments we can make in our future quality of life and prosperity as a province.

Much of the burden of disease and injury is preventable if we encourage and support people to be active, eat healthier, not smoke, and manage personal risk, and if we work across various sectors and government departments to address the social and economic factors that contribute to poor health.

The premier created the Office of Health Promotion in 2002 to provide leadership and coordination in these areas. The office brings together the former Sport and Recreation Commission and aspects of the population health branch of the Department of Health.

Last year was a growth period for the Office of Health Promotion, which included hiring core staff and developing a strategic plan. The new funding will allow the office to build on existing work, such as the Active Kids, Healthy Kids strategy to encourage children, youth, and families to be more active and the highly successful tobacco strategy, which has resulted in a five per cent reduction in smoking since it was introduced in 2001.

Additional funding will also allow the office to expand its work into new areas, such as healthy eating, injury prevention, problem drinking, and chronic disease prevention. Strategies have been developed in these areas and will be put into action with the help of many partners over the next year.

Other budget highlights include the following:

• $1.2 million more will be spent to increase physical activity of Nova Scotians, including new investments in Active Kids, Healthy Kids and funding to help provide safe, accessible facilities for people to be active, such as arenas and ballparks, and to create physical environments that encourage active modes of transportation, such as walking and cycling. Over $8 million in total is being invested to increase the physical activity levels of Nova Scotians through sport and recreation.
• an additional investment of $240,000 will bring total funding for the tobacco strategy to just over $2 million annually. New funding will be used to increase support for people who want to quit smoking. Over half of the total funding for the tobacco strategy is now committed to helping people quit smoking.
• more than $1.5 million will be invested in new areas of programming, such as healthy eating, injury prevention, addressing problem drinking, and chronic disease prevention. This will include new initiatives to provide healthier food choices in schools and to help prevent falls among seniors.

The Office of Health Promotion will work with many partners to build and expand on its work over the next several years. It will take time -- perhaps a generation -- to make tangible improvements to our overall health. That is why we need to start now. Healthy children will grow up to be healthier, happier, and more productive citizens. Investing in health promotion today is one of the most important investments we can make in our quality of life, our prosperity, and our future.

The Office of Health Promotion will release a strategic plan in the spring of 2004.

NOTE: For further 2004-05 budget information, see the Department of Finance website at www.gov.ns.ca/finance .