Chatham-Kent residents are facing significant public health challenges according to a new report being presented to council at Monday’s meeting.
According to the 2025 Well-Being Status report, residents of Chatham-Kent have a high rate of serious health problems, are dying younger, and are struggling to get the care they need. Also highlighted are the rising rates of youth struggling from mental health, poverty, family instability and rising substance abuse issues.
Prepared by Erin McEachran, the Community Safety and Well-Being Coordinator with Chatham-Kent Fire and Rescue, the data was collected from Statistics Canada, Public Health Ontario, local agencies, and through a local community engagement survey.
McEachran said 350 responses were collected over four weeks from a community engagement survey, which was enough to estimate the views of the entire population of Chatham-Kent with a 90 percent confidence level.
With over 32,000 residents reportedly lacking a family doctor, 62.9 percent of those surveyed still rate their health as “very good” or “excellent”. Though this still puts the municipality below the provincial average of 69.9 percent.
Chatham-Kent also has a higher rate of heart disease, cancer, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and premature death.
Substance abuse is also up from previous years, in addition to an increase in emergency room visits, Chatham-Kent lost 47 community members to substance-related deaths in 2024. McEachran wrote that contributing factors to opioid related harms include, “limited access to addiction treatment services, harm reduction services and available social supports, increases in mental health issues, and a volatile supply of unregulated opioids and other drugs.”
There is also a mental health decline in the municipality.
In 2021, 57 percent of Chatham-Kent residents surveyed rated their mental health as “very good” or “excellent”, compared to 70 percent in 2017/2018. The emergency room at Chatham-Kent Health Alliance reports they are seeing approximately three children per week for mental health care. And according to the report “In 2023, Chatham-Kent Police Mobile Crisis Team responded to 1687 calls for mental health crisis response and apprehended 67 individuals under the Mental Health Act.”
The Community Safety and Well-Being Plan (CSWP) is a mandatory plan that is required under Ontario’s Community Safety and Policing Act, 2019. It is meant to proactively address social issues before they become emergencies, such as crime, poor health, substance use, or homelessness.
