Key Messages
Prevalence
Incidence
Technical Notes
Key Messages
- There were more than 48,000 Simcoe Muskoka adults (35+) living with COPD in 2019, including more than 2,700 individuals newly diagnosed with COPD. This means that one-in-eight Simcoe Muskoka adults (35+) were living with COPD and that for every 1,000 Simcoe Muskoka adults (35+), seven were newly diagnosed with COPD.
- COPD prevalence rates increased from 2009 to 2015 before returning to the rates observed a decade earlier by 2019.
- COPD prevalence and incidence rates are highest among those living in areas with the most material deprivation and lowest among those living in areas with the least deprivation.
Prevalence
According to the Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) cohorts developed by the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES), in 2019, approximately 48,250 (or one-in-eight) Simcoe Muskoka adults (35 years and older) were living with COPD.
The age-standardized adult (35+) COPD prevalence rates in Simcoe Muskoka have been consistently higher than the provincial rates since 2009. The adult COPD prevalence rates increased, both locally and provincially, from 2009 to 2015 before declining again from 2015 to 2019. The COPD prevalence rates in 2019 returned to levels observed a decade earlier.
COPD prevalence has been consistently higher among females when compared with males in Simcoe Muskoka since 2009.
In 2019, Simcoe Muskoka adults (35+) living in areas with the highest amount of material deprivation (as measured by the 2016 Ontario Marginalization Index) had the highest COPD prevalence rate and those living in areas with the least amount of material deprivation had the lowest rate.
Incidence
The rate of new cases of COPD (also called the incidence rate) provides a measure of the risk of developing COPD over a given period of time. This is different from the COPD prevalence rates presented above, which provide a measure of how wide spread COPD is over a given period of time. In 2019, there were over 2,700 new cases of COPD diagnosed among Simcoe Muskoka adults (35+) which equates to an age-standardized incidence rate of 7.1 (6.8, 7.4) new cases per 1,000. The COPD incidence rates, both locally and provincially, decreased significantly from 2009 to 2019. The Simcoe Muskoka incidence rates were consistently above the provincial incidence rates for this entire period.
In 2019, COPD incidence in Simcoe Muskoka was significantly higher among males when compared with females (8 new cases per 1,000 for males compared with 7 new cases per 1,000 for females among adults 35+). The male COPD incidence rates in Simcoe Muskoka have been significantly higher than female rates since 2017.
In 2019, Simcoe Muskoka adults (35+) living in areas with the highest amount of material deprivation (as measured by the 2016 Ontario Marginalization Index) had the highest COPD incidence rate and those living in areas with the least amount of material deprivation had the lowest rate.
Technical Notes
Information presented on this page is from the report by Refik Saskin and Luis Palma titled Chronic disease trends in Simcoe Muskoka. The report was completed in February of 2023 as part of the response to an Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care Applied Health Research Question (AHRQ) submitted to the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) by the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit (SMDHU). The data source citation for counts, rates and other figures extracted from the report is: ICES AHRQ Project 2023 0950 141 000.
This AHQR study was supported by ICES, which is funded by the Ontario Ministry of Health. The opinions, results and conclusions are those of the authors and are independent from the funding and data sources. No endorsement by ICES, the Ontario Ministry of Health, or CIHI is intended or should be inferred. The contents and interpretation of this web page are solely the responsibility of SMDHU.
Page updated February 6, 2023