SDG 3 Good Health and Well-Being

SDG 3 is ensuring good health and well-being for all at all ages. We all deserve to be healthy and able to achieve what we need in our lives. However, to ensure the health of everyone, we also need to address gaps in services, treatment and coverage for vulnerable populations too. We can do this by developing strategies to positively impact the mortality rates of mothers, children, substance users, the extremely poor and other minority groups who have difficulty addressing their health needs. Additionally, this goal seeks to improve access to universal health care, access to affordable medicines and sexual and reproductive health care services for everyone. Through improved access to health care around the world, strong research, health finance and early warning systems, we can address and reduce epidemics such as malaria, HIV/AIDS, mental health and cancer. We can measure how we’re doing by looking at population mortality rates to see if the number of new cases or the number of people dying changes through intervention programs.

Health-related skills and abilities are particularly important in Saskatchewan which has twice the national average of HIV cases, the highest in Canada. Canada also has the third highest youth suicide rate in the industrialized world and second highest rate of opioid use in the world[i]. An example of this is teaching first year nursing students about social determinants of health through exercises such as body-mapping, described by USask Assistant Professor Geoffrey Maina as “an artistic method of narrating experiences… where individuals can discuss personal, emotional, cultural, political and socio-economics dimensions of their lives” to “help students confront their own beliefs and values, and engage with PLHIV [people living with HIV] to gain new experiences.”[ii].