One in four Canadians -- or 27 per cent -- say they or someone in their family has experienced an environment-related health condition, such as asthma or allergies.
Among those experiencing such a condition, asthma is the most common problem, at 39 per cent.
Those are the findings of the Canadian Medical Association's seventh annual National Report Card on Health Care, which is based a telephone survey of 1001 adults.
It's the first time the report has had a major focus on the link between the environment and health, said Dr. Colin McMillan, outgoing president for the association.
"About a year ago, as many of your viewers would know, a poll showed that Canadians perceived the environment as being a very important issue in general," McMillan told Â鶹´«Ã½net.
"It was our feeling at that time that this may be around for a while, and that there was an important link in the population's mind between environment and health. So we commissioned this poll to verify that. And as you have indicated, it does show, in fact that, over 60 per cent do establish that link."
The survey found that the environment and health care each drew the support of 29 per cent of respondents who were asked about the most pressing issue facing Canada.
"It is interesting that no other issues are even in the same ballpark in terms of their importance and relevance to Canadians," said McMillan.
Other findings of the National Report Card:
- 82 per cent of respondents were somewhat or very concerned about the effect the environment will have on their personal health.
- 82 per cent are worried about the potential for climate change to spread diseases such as the West Nile virus.
- 81 per cent of respondents assigned an A or B grade to their drinking water
- 74 per cent assigned an A or B grade to the environment
- 72 per cent assigned an A or B grade to the soil
- and 70 per cent assigned an A or B grade to air quality.
The survey also found two out of three Canadians questioned are taking action to protect their health from the environment, by doing things like using sunscreen or avoiding sun exposure.
Eight out of ten Canadians are also changing their lifestyles to lessen their impact on the environment by doing such things as recycling or cutting down on water consumption.
The survey was commissioned by the medical association and was conducted between June 19 and June 29 and questioned 1,001 Canadian adults. The sample provides a 3.2 percentage point margin of error for the overall national findings, 95 times out of 100.
