Even as more Canadians report they are suffering from health problems such as blood pressure and diabetes, fewer Canadians report that they have a regular doctor.

According to Statistics Canada's Canadian Community Health Survey, 84 per cent of Canadians over the age of 12 reported having a regular medical doctor in 2008. That's down from 86 per cent in 2003.

But those numbers do not necessarily reflect a shortage of doctors. Among the 16 per cent of Canadians who did not have a regular doctor in 2008, 56 per cent reported that they had not looked for one.

Another 43 per cent reported they could not find a doctor, either because medical doctors in the area were not taking new patients, their medical doctor had left or retired, or there simply were no doctors in their area.

But Statistics Canada says the proportion of Canadians reporting they could not find a doctor has been increasing since 2003.

Women were more likely than men to report that they had a regular doctor. About 88 per cent of women had a doctor, compared with 80 per cent of men in 2008.

The largest gender difference was in the age group 20 to 34. A stunning 34 per cent of men said they did not have a regular doctor, twice the 17 per cent of women.

Among those who reported having a regular medical doctor, differences between the sexes decreases with age. There were no significant differences beyond the age of 55. In 2008, 95 per cent of seniors reported that they had a regular doctor.

Rural residents were slightly more likely than urban residents (86 per cent compared with 84 per cent) to have a regular doctor.

When they needed medical care, 58 per cent of people without a doctor reported that they went to a walk-in clinic in 2008. Another 15 per cent went to an emergency room, while nine per cent went to a community health centre or a Centre local de sant� communautaire (CLSC).

Chronic conditions

The survey also found that between 2005 and 2008, the rate of Canadians who reported high blood pressure and diabetes increased.

High blood pressure, officially called hypertension, affected 16 per cent of Canadians aged 12 or older in 2008, up from 13 per cent in 2001.

For both sexes, high blood pressure becomes more prevalent with age. At the age of 65 or older, 50 per cent of women had high blood pressure, compared with 44 per cent of men.

While the percentage of men under 65 with high blood pressure equalled or surpassed that of women, overall, women were slightly more likely than men to report that they had been diagnosed with high blood pressure.

Diabetes affected six per cent of Canadians aged 12 or older in 2008, up from just over four per cent in 2001. From 2001 to 2008, men were more likely than women to report that they had diabetes.

Few Canadians younger than 35 reported having diabetes, but those number rose as people grew older so that among those over the age of 65, 18 per cent of men and 14 per cent of women had been diagnosed with diabetes.

Since 2001, rural residents have consistently reported higher rates of diabetes than those reported by urban residents. Provincially, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick had rates higher than the national average.

In 2008, 15 per cent of Canadians aged 12 or older reported that they had been diagnosed with arthritis. Not surprisingly, the prevalence of arthritis rose with age among both sexes, but at all ages, women were more likely than men to report the condition.

Among seniors aged 65 or older, 51 per cent of women and 34 per cent of men had arthritis.

In 2008, eight per cent of Canadians aged 12 or older reported that they had been diagnosed with asthma. This percentage has been virtually stable since 2001.

Among kids under 19, about 11 per cent have asthma. From ages 20 to 64, women had higher asthma rates than men, while there was no significant difference between the sexes in the youngest (12 to 19) and oldest (65 or older) age groups.