Fewer Canadians report “very good” or “perfect” functional health today than a decade ago, according to a new Statistics Canada report.
Functional health assesses difficulty across eight domains: vision, hearing, speech, cognition, dexterity, mobility, emotional health, and pain. From 2015 to 2024, the share of Canadian adults with high functional health fell from 68.6% to 56.4%.
The steepest drop occurred among those aged 18-34-falling from 73.4% to 60.1%. Adults 35-49 saw a similar slide, from 73% to 60.4%. Women consistently reported worse outcomes than men across all age groups.
Emotional health-measured by happiness and interest in life-plummeted from 78.3% in 2015 to 61.2% in 2024. By 2024, young adults (18-34) reported poorer emotional health than those over 50.
Pain prevalence also rose: the share of Canadians reporting no pain dropped from 77.9% to 72%.
All provinces saw declines. Nova Scotia (47.7%) and New Brunswick (48.3%) recorded the lowest functional health rates; Quebec (65.6%) had the highest.