News

March is Kidney Health Month

A recent poll conducted by Ipsos on behalf of The Kidney Foundation of Canada found that the majority of Canadians – 59% – admit they don’t know anything about kidney disease and 48% of people don’t know if they themselves may be at risk¹. Further, 43% of people don’t know if there is a cure. These findings are coupled with the information that 23% of Canadians polled, however, say they personally know someone with kidney disease.

March is Kidney Health Month, a perfect time to remind Canadians to think about their kidney knowledge and to find out if they are personally at risk. 1 in 10 Canadians have kidney disease.

“It’s a common occurrence that unless someone you know is personally affected by a chronic condition like kidney disease, you may not be aware of the signs and symptoms or what a diagnosis means to someone,” said Elizabeth Myles, National Executive Director of The Kidney Foundation of Canada. “Diagnosis of chronic kidney disease means a lifelong journey with an illness that can take a significant toll on someone’s physical, mental, emotional and even financial wellbeing.”

To support this journey, The Kidney Foundation provides a wide variety of educational resources and programs to help people in the way that best suits what they need. “Peer support programs, webinars and virtual educational forums, and emergency short-term financial assistance are just some of the ways The Kidney Foundation can help ease the burden,” said Myles.

The Kidney Foundation encourages people to stand up and take notice of their mighty kidneys and their kidney health. Take action:

• Learn more about you risk by taking The Kidney Foundation’s risk awareness quiz at kidney.ca/risk
• Attend the Virtual Educational Forum, Living Your Best Life with Kidney Disease, being held March 8 and 9. Find out more and register here.
• Understand the statistics on kidney disease and organ donation in Canada. Find out Why Kidney Disease Should Matter to You and Why Canada Needs More Organ Donors.

¹ These are some of the findings of an Ipsos poll conducted between December 9 and 15, 2022, on behalf of The Kidney Foundation of Canada. For this survey, a sample of 1,001 Canadians aged 18+ was interviewed. Quotas and weighting were employed to ensure that the sample’s composition reflects that of the Canadian population according to census parameters. The precision of Ipsos online polls is measured using a credibility interval. In this case, the poll is accurate to within ± 3.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, had all Canadians aged 18+ been polled. The credibility interval will be wider among subsets of the population. All sample surveys and polls may be subject to other sources of error, including, but not limited to coverage error, and measurement error.