OTTAWA — A new study suggests children and teenagers living in four Inuit regions have a mortality rate roughly five times higher than other Canadians.
And suicide accounts for 40 per cent of deaths in Inuit Nunangat, versus eight per cent in the rest of Canada.
The sobering figures come from a Statistics Canada compilation of data from 2004 to 2008.
The agency used causes of death among people aged one to 19 in the four Inuit land claim regions known as Inuit Nunangat to determine mortality rates.
It found that children and teenagers were 3.6 times more likely to die from communicable diseases.
They were twice as likely to die due to non-communicable diseases, compared with those in the rest of Canada.
StatsCan says overall mortality rates among Inuit children and teenagers have declined over 10 years in tandem with rates in the rest of Canada but the ratio has remained the same.
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