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Is the health of Canada's Inuit people deteriorating? Is climate change a factor?
These are among the many questions being studied by ArcticNet researchers as part of the largest health survey ever undertaken of northern residents.

It was a first for Canada's scientific community, and a first for Canadians living in one of the most remote regions of the country.

On August 28, 2004, a multidisciplinary team of doctors, nurses, and scientists left Churchill, Manitoba, aboard Canada's first dedicated research icebreaker. The CCGS Amundsen sailed east across Hudson Bay to the coastal town of Kuujjuaraapik in northern Quebec – the first of 14 Nunavik communities they would visit during their month-long expedition.

ArcticNet researchers are among those participating in the largest health survey of Inuit ever undertaken anywhere. The cross-sectional Inuit Health Survey is examining the overall health of about one thousand randomly selected Nunavik residents, including lifestyle, diet, heart disease, bone density, safety habits, and exposure to environmental contaminants. It will also detect more urgent health problems, such as diabetes or osteoporosis.

The study might never have happened without participation from ArcticNet, one of Canada's newest Networks of Centres of Excellence.

"Sending people to the North to do this type of study is very complex and very expensive," says Dr. Éric Dewailly, an epidemiologist with the Quebec Centre for Public Health at Université Laval and the Principal Investigator of the survey. "By piggybacking various studies together, including ArcticNet's, a large-scale study like this becomes cost-effective. No single group could have done this on their own."

ArcticNet is contributing two key components to the study: three complementary research projects, and funds to operate the retrofitted Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker that can reach these remote communities. The Amundsen is a floating laboratory and medical clinic, providing all the equipment needed by nurses, doctors, and researchers to conduct comprehensive tests on northern residents, as well as the surrounding physical environment.

The Amundsen is the primary research platform for the 145 Canadian and international scientists and students participating in the new $25.7-million ArcticNet research consortium, which is studying the natural, medical, and societal effects of climate change in Canada's Arctic regions.

With enough room for 45 researchers and 36 crew, the ship also provides a training ground for dozens of graduate students and local Inuit assisting with the various studies.

"This is the first time this type of research vessel has been used to carry out a health study of Inuit," says Dr. Dewailly. "In addition to the research, we are also able to provide medical services, like breast cancer screening, which isn't available in these communities."

The voyage represents the first field studies for ArcticNet health specialists. One project is examining changes in dietary patterns and the emergence of chronic disease, while another is looking at drinking water contamination. A third project is tracking brucellosis and 11 other zoonotic diseases that can be transmitted from animals to humans. The studies will be repeated in 2006 with Inuit living on Baffin Island in Nunavut.

These three health projects are part of a wider, highly integrated ensemble of 26 Arctic projects that form the scientific program of ArcticNet to study the environmental, health, and socio-economic impacts of the ongoing meltdown of the Arctic. Earlier in the summer, ArcticNet oceanographers sailed on the Amundsen in the Beaufort Sea and on the Russian icebreaker Kapitan Dranytsin in the Laptev Sea (Siberia) to deploy long-term observatories of the changing coastal Arctic Ocean. Social scientists supported by ArcticNet have also initiated a major consultation of Inuit communities on climate change and its impacts.

Data compiled from a smaller health study of the Nunavik Inuit in 1992 resulted in a ban on lead shot ammunition, as well as programs to reduce mercury exposure among pregnant women, prevent iron deficiency, and reduce smoking. Dr. Dewailly says this Nunavik survey will be used to develop similar health prevention and promotion programs.

"If you just rely on health statistics, like mortality or hospitalization, you're too late," he stresses. "This study is significant because we are going to healthy people and measuring the beginning of abnormalities. The opportunity to change and modify screening, health promotion, and health prevention will be far more efficient than waiting until it's too late."

www.arcticnet.ulaval.ca