Health indicators for First Nations adults living off reserve, Métis and Inuit adults, 2015 to 2022

Press Release

From 2019 to 2022, among Indigenous people aged 18 years and older, 54.3% of Inuit reported having a regular healthcare provider, along with 81.4% of First Nations people living off reserve and 84.5% of Métis. This is compared with 85.7% of the non-Indigenous adult population.

Released today, new data from the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) provide insight into the health status of Indigenous people aged 18 years and older. These data span multiple periods from 2015 to 2022 and aim to enhance understanding of the health disparities experienced by Indigenous communities.

About half of Indigenous people report having very good or excellent mental health

Health disparities between Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations persist due to a number of factors, including the enduring legacy of colonial policies such as the residential school system, which continue to have ongoing impacts on mental and physical health.

According to data from the 2019 to 2022 CCHS, 45.8% of First Nations adults living off reserve, 47.8% of Inuit adults and 52.8% of Métis adults reported having very good or excellent mental health. By comparison, 61.5% of non-Indigenous adults reported having very good or excellent mental health.

Just over one-fifth of First Nations adults living off reserve reported having been diagnosed by a health professional with an anxiety disorder (22.5%) or a mood disorder (20.3%). These rates are just over double those among non-Indigenous adults for both anxiety (10.9%) and mood (9.8%) disorders. Among Métis adults, the prevalence of both anxiety (18.6%) and mood (18.7%) disorders were similar, while among Inuit adults, the proportions were 15.7% for anxiety disorders and 13.8% for mood disorders.

Indigenous people less likely to have a regular health care provider despite being more likely to have a chronic health condition

Approximately half of First Nations adults living off reserve (50.1%), Métis (49.3%) and Inuit (50.3%) adults reported having at least one chronic health condition from 2019 to 2022, compared with 40.6% of non-Indigenous adults.

In terms of overall health, 43.9% of First Nations adults living off reserve and approximately half of Métis adults and Inuit adults reported being in very good or excellent health, compared with 58.9% of non-Indigenous adults.

Among Inuit living in Inuit Nunangat, 43.1% of adults reported having very good or excellent health, about 20 percentage points lower than their non-Indigenous counterparts in the same region (62.4%).

Despite being more likely to have a chronic health condition, Inuit adults (54.3%) and First Nations adults living off reserve (81.4%) were less likely to have a regular health care provider than non-Indigenous adults (85.7%).

Among the adult population, Inuit living inside of Inuit Nunangat (31.2%) were less than half as likely to report having a regular health care provider compared with Inuit living outside Inuit Nunangat (77.0%). Research has shown that many Inuit face barriers to accessing health care, such as having to travel outside their communities and long wait times.

Among Métis adults, the proportion that had a regular health care provider (84.5%) was similar to that of non-Indigenous adults (85.7%).

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Note to readers

Statistics Canada released three data tables with various health indicators for First Nations people living off reserve, Métis and Inuit aged 18 years and older. This work is part of the Transformational Approach to Indigenous Data with the goal of building Indigenous data capacity and improving the visibility of Indigenous People in Canada’s national statistics.

The first table covers two consecutive four-year periods (2015 to 2018; 2019 to 2022), using combined cycles of the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS), for First Nations adults living off reserve, Métis adults and Inuit adults living in the provinces and territories.

The second table covers the same periods but focuses on Inuit aged 18 years and older living inside and outside Inuit Nunangat (including a breakdown by region).

The third table presents the same data as the first table; however, it uses two-year periods instead to allow for more frequent data releases.

The CCHS is an annual cross-sectional survey that collects a wide range of self-reported information about the health status of Canadians, factors determining their health status and their use of health care services. It covers the population aged 18 years and older living off reserve in all provinces and territories, excluding full-time members of the Canadian Armed Forces, children in foster care, institutionalized persons, as well as those living in the Quebec health regions of Nunavik and Région des Terres-Cries-de-la-Baie-James.

Indigenous identity refers to people who identified as First Nations, Métis or Inuk, or those who reported having more than one Indigenous identity. Indigenous people reporting multiple identities are included in the Indigenous total but are not shown separately because of small sample sizes.

Inuit Nunangat—the homeland of Inuit in Canada—comprises four regions: the Inuvialuit region of the Northwest Territories, the territory of Nunavut, Nunatsiavut (northern Labrador) and Nunavik (northern Quebec). The CCHS is not specifically designed to fully cover these regions, but it does cover three of the four regions (i.e., the Inuvialuit region, Nunavut and Nunatsiavut).

Data for the territories for the 2019 to 2022 reference period consists of data from the combined 2019-2020 and 2022 cycles.

In 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, data collection in the North was restricted to only the three capitals in the territories (i.e., Whitehorse, Yellowknife and Iqaluit). This lowered response rates significantly, particularly among the Inuit population, resulting in lower target population coverage in the territories for the 2019-2020 period than in previous cycles. For similar reasons, the response rates for the 2021 cycle in the territories were extremely low and, therefore, the data have not been released.

A regular health care provider is a health professional that a person sees or talks to when they need care or advice about their health, such as family doctors, nurses, specialists and pharmacists.

Chronic health conditions include the following: obesity, high blood pressure, currently having cancer, currently having heart disease, suffering from the effects of a stroke, diabetes or dementia.

Contact information

For more information, or to enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact us (toll-free 1-800-263-1136; 514-283-8300; infostats@statcan.gc.ca) or Media Relations (statcan.mediahotline-ligneinfomedias.statcan@statcan.gc.ca).

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