Using instrument mapping to fill data gaps in functional health

Released: 2025-02-03

Statistics Canada's Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) is conducted annually to provide current, detailed and comprehensive health information on the Canadian population. As part of this collection, the CCHS includes information on the functional health of Canadians. Functional health reflects the levels of ability people have in undertaking basic tasks across different areas of functioning, such as vision, mobility and speech.

The CCHS includes two measures of functional health in alternating two-year cycles: the Health Utilities Index Mark 3 (HUI3) and the Washington Group on Disability Statistics (WG) disability measure. The WG measure is used as an internationally comparable measure of disability, while the HUI3 provides a measure of health-related quality of life. The HUI3 is also measured in utility values—scores that describe people's preferences for different states of health—and is important for deriving standard economic, clinical and population health measures. However, because collection of the HUI3 data alternates with that of the WG, there may be data gaps for the years they are not collected.

The study, "Mapping the Washington Group on Disability Statistics Disability Measure to the Health Utilities Index Mark 3: Development and Testing of Qualitative and Predictive Multivariable Models in a General Population Sample," released today, examines the relationship between the HUI3 and WG measures with the aim of examining whether and how utility values of the HUI3 can be estimated from the WG measure.

Model testing showed that empirical mapping (using statistical estimation) of the WG measure provided reasonable estimates of the HUI3 utility values. This study provides equations to estimate the utility values of the HUI3 from the WG measure and other health and demographic variables from the CCHS. These results may reduce data gaps in years when the HUI3 is not collected and optimize resources used in data collection.

Products

The study "Mapping the Washington Group on Disability Statistics Disability Measure to the Health Utilities Index Mark 3: Development and Testing of Qualitative and Predictive Multivariable Models in a General Population Sample," part of the Analytical Studies: Methods and References series (Catalogue number11-633-X), is now available.

Contact information

For more information, or to enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact us (toll-free 1-800-263-1136; 514-283-8300; infostats@statcan.gc.ca) or Media Relations (statcan.mediahotline-ligneinfomedias.statcan@statcan.gc.ca).