Kathy Coffin Regional Director Population and Public Health Branch Health Canada July 2003 xii 1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The purpose of this discussion paper is to explore the relationships between inequity and chronic disease in Atlantic Canada in the context of the particular social and economic patterns that may influence health in this region. [...] The third message discusses the theory and evidence that social and economic processes and the resulting poverty create inequities and chronic disease in society. [...] The social and economic context of an area affects the incidence of chronic disease in the area as a whole. [...] Noncommunicable chronic diseases in the Atlantic provinces Cardiovascular disease, the major cause of death in Canada and the Atlantic provinces, is responsible for 37% of all deaths in the Atlantic region. [...] Chronic disease prevalence and disability are higher, for example, in Cape Breton and in the Truro-Amherst and Yarmouth-Digby areas of Nova Scotia, in Labrador and northern Newfoundland, in northern New Brunswick, and, to some extent, in rural Prince Edward Island, than in Halifax, St.