Terry Fox’s starting point has Canada’s highest cancer rates

Terry Fox began his Marathon of Hope in St. John’s, N.L., in 1980. He dipped his artificial leg in the Atlantic Ocean before starting on the first of the more than 5,300 kilometres he would eventually run before cancer forced him to stop.

Thirty-five years after Fox began his race in the province, Newfoundland and Labrador has Canada’s highest per-capita rates of cancer incidence, according to a national report released by the Canadian Cancer Society (CCS) in May.

With 435.8 incidences of cancer for every 100,000 people, there are about 1,500 annual cancer-related deaths in the province every year, according to the CCS findings.

There are several factors behind the high cancer rates in the province. Along with a population that is older than average compared to the rest of Canada, Newfoundland and Labrador has higher rates of smoking and drinking than other provinces.

According to Statistics Canada, 21.7 per cent in the province were smokers in 2014, compared to the national average of 18.1 per cent.

And 24.5 per cent of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians reported heavy drinking — five or more drinks for men or four or more drinks for women, once a month, over the past year — compared to the national average of 18.9 per cent in 2013, according to StatsCan.

The province also has the country’s highest obesity rates at 29 per cent of the adult population, according to census data, and research has shown an increase between obesity and increased risk for some cancers.

Newfoundland and Labrador faces particular challenges in treating a population that is aging, spread out and largely rural. And that burden is not expected to drop any time soon, the report found.

The CCS estimated that the number of new cancer cases in the Atlantic province could rise by about 40 per cent over the next 15 years.