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The objective of this study was to determine if the prevalence of overweight and obesity is associated with neighbourhood walkability. The analysis tested whether a dose-response relationship between the Street Smart Walk Score® and various measures of physical activity, overweight, and obesity existed in a large, population-based sample of adults in urban and suburban Ontario.

Discrepancies between self-reported and objectively measured physical activity are well-known. For the purpose of validation, this study compares a new self-reported physical activity questionnaire with an existing one and with accelerometer data.

The 2012/2013 Canadian Health Measures Survey collected audiometric and self-reported data to estimate the prevalence of hearing loss and limitations in a population-based sample of Canadians. This study presents an analysis of CHMS audiometric and self-reported hearing data for adults aged 20 to 79.

This overview document describes the conceptual underpinnings of the Integrated Business Statistics Program and explains how program components facilitate a more integrated approach to economic surveying at Statistics Canada.

The Cancer Risk Management Model incorporates the risk of developing cancer, disease screening and clinical management with cost and labour data to assess health outcomes and economic impact. A screening module added to the lung cancer module enables a variety of scenarios to be evaluated for different target populations with varying rates of participation, compliance, and frequency of low-dose computed tomography screening.

Estimates of the underground economy by province and territory for the period 2007 to 2012 are now available for the first time. The objective of this technical note is to explain how the methodology employed to derive upper-bound estimates of the underground economy for the provinces and territories differs from that used to derive national estimates.

This new dataset increases the information available for comparing the performance of provinces and territories across a range of measures. It combines often fragmented provincial time series data that, as such, are of limited utility for examining the evolution of provincial economies over extended periods. More advanced statistical methods, and models with greater breadth and depth, are difficult to apply to existing fragmented Canadian data. The longitudinal nature of the new provincial dataset remedies this shortcoming. This report explains the construction of the latest vintage of the dataset. The dataset contains the most up-to-date information available.

This paper introduces and explains modifications made to the Labour Force Survey estimates in January 2015. Some of these modifications include the adjustment of all LFS estimates to reflect population counts based on the 2011 Census and includes updates to 2011 Geography classification system.

Using data from the Provincial KLEMS database, this paper asks whether provincial economies have undergone structural change in their business sectors since 2000. It does so by applying a measure of industrial change (the dissimilarity index) using measures of output (real GDP) and hours worked. The paper also develops a statistical methodology to test whether the shifts in the industrial composition of output and hours worked over the period are due to random year-over-year changes in industrial structure or long-term systematic change in the structure of provincial economies. The paper is designed to inform discussion and analysis of recent changes in industrial composition at the national level, notably, the decline in manufacturing output and the concomitant rise of resource industries, and the implications of this change for provincial economies.

The migration data are released annually from a modelled databank that monitors and tracks the movements of people to and within Canada. Data are derived from the comparison of two consecutive years of tax files. Most current data show migration between 2011 and 2012.

Data on international migration and internal migration are generally available 15 to 18 months after the tax filing deadline.

The data consist of estimates of migration flows between census divisions (CDs) or census metropolitan areas (CMAs), by sex and broad age groups. Information may be requested by province of origin/destination, by age group, by type of migration (interprovincial, intraprovincial and international) and sex; and for migration flows by census division of origin/destination, or by census metropolitan area/non-census metropolitan area of origin/destination. The statistics are derived from the annual tax file provided by the Canada Revenue Agency.

Note: Intraprovincial migration: movement of people between two CDs or CMAs located within the same province. The CD/CMA of departure is the CD/CMA of origin and the CD/CMA of arrival is the CD/CMA of destination. Interprovincial migration: movement of people between CDs and CMAs located in two different provinces. The province of departure is the province of origin and the province of arrival is the province of destination. International migration: movement of people between an area in Canada and another country. Migration flows: migration flows for any given CD or CMA. The flows are listed in descending order of net migration for the most recent year of migration.

The first in this series is the Consulting Engineering Services Price Index (CEPI) which is an annual index that measures changes in the prices for services provided by consulting engineers. These services encompass advisory and design work as well as construction or project management. They are provided for many types of projects (fields of specialization), and to both Canadian and foreign clients. Price indexes are published for 10 fields of specialization as well as for national, regional, and foreign markets.

The National Population Health Survey (NPHS) is designed to enhance the understanding of the processes affecting health. The survey collects cross-sectional as well as longitudinal data. In 1994/95 the survey interviewed a panel of 17,276 individuals, then returned to interview them a second time in 1996/97. The response rate for these individuals was 96% in 1996/97. Data collection from the panel will continue for up to two decades. For cross-sectional purposes, data were collected for a total of 81,000 household residents in all provinces (except people on Indian reserves or on Canadian Forces bases) in 1996/97.

This overview illustrates the variety of information available by presenting data on perceived health, chronic conditions, injuries, repetitive strains, depression, smoking, alcohol consumption, physical activity, consultations with medical professionals, use of medications and use of alternative medicine.

Documentation to accompany public-use microdata files. Contains a detailed description of the survey design, content and methods, as well as the record layout and the data dictionary.

Cycle 10 collected data from persons 15 years and older and concentrated on the respondent's family. Topics covered include marital history, common- law unions, biological, adopted and step children, family origins, child leaving and fertility intentions.

The target population of the GSS (General Social Survey) consisted of all individuals aged 15 and over living in a private household in one of the ten provinces.

A question that commonly arises in longitudinal surveys is the issue of how to combine differing cohorts of the survey. In this paper we present a novel method for combining different cohorts, and using all available data, in a longitudinal survey to estimate parameters of a semiparametric model, which relates the response variable to a set of covariates. The procedure builds upon the Weighted Generalized Estimation Equation method for handling missing waves in longitudinal studies. Our method is set up under a joint-randomization framework for estimation of model parameters, which takes into account the superpopulation model as well as the survey design randomization. We also propose a design-based, and a joint-randomization, variance estimation method. To illustrate the methodology we apply it to the Survey of Doctorate Recipients, conducted by the U.S. National Science Foundation.

We consider two different self-benchmarking methods for the estimation of small area means based on the Fay-Herriot (FH) area level model: the method of You and Rao (2002) applied to the FH model and the method of Wang, Fuller and Qu (2008) based on augmented models. We derive an estimator of the mean squared prediction error (MSPE) of the You-Rao (YR) estimator of a small area mean that, under the true model, is correct to second-order terms. We report the results of a simulation study on the relative bias of the MSPE estimator of the YR estimator and the MSPE estimator of the Wang, Fuller and Qu (WFQ) estimator obtained under an augmented model. We also study the MSPE and the estimators of MSPE for the YR and WFQ estimators obtained under a misspecified model.

We consider conservative variance estimation for the Horvitz-Thompson estimator of a population total in sampling designs with zero pairwise inclusion probabilities, known as "non-measurable" designs. We decompose the standard Horvitz-Thompson variance estimator under such designs and characterize the bias precisely. We develop a bias correction that is guaranteed to be weakly conservative (nonnegatively biased) regardless of the nature of the non-measurability. The analysis sheds light on conditions under which the standard Horvitz-Thompson variance estimator performs well despite non-measurability and where the conservative bias correction may outperform commonly-used approximations.

Data matching is a common practice used to reduce the response burden of respondents and to improve the quality of the information collected from respondents when the linkage method does not introduce bias. However, historical linkage, which consists in linking external records from previous years to the year of the initial wave of a survey, is relatively rare and, until now, had not been used at Statistics Canada. The present paper describes the method used to link the records from the Living in Canada Survey pilot to historical tax data on income and labour (T1 and T4 files). It presents the evolution of the linkage rate going back over time and compares earnings data collected from personal income tax returns with those collected from employers file. To illustrate the new possibilities of analysis offered by this type of linkage, the study concludes with an earnings profile by age and sex for different cohorts based on year of birth.

We present a generalized estimating equations approach for estimating the concordance correlation coefficient and the kappa coefficient from sample survey data. The estimates and their accompanying standard error need to correctly account for the sampling design. Weighted measures of the concordance correlation coefficient and the kappa coefficient, along with the variance of these measures accounting for the sampling design, are presented. We use the Taylor series linearization method and the jackknife procedure for estimating the standard errors of the resulting parameter estimates. Body measurement and oral health data from the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey are used to illustrate this methodology.

These short analytical articles provide complementary analysis to the 2011 Census analytical document. These articles allow for a more in-depth look to relevant topics related to the Canadian population. The three articles linked to the age and sex release are entitled 'Centenarians in Canada,' 'Generations in Canada' and 'The census: A tool for planning at the local level.'

This paper examines the process by which migrants experience gains in earnings subsequent to migration and, in particular, the advantage that migrants obtain from moving to large, dynamic metropolitan labour markets, using Toronto as a benchmark. There are two potentially distinct patterns to gains in earnings associated with migration. The first is a step upwards in which workers realize immediate gains in earnings subsequent to migration. The second is accelerated gains in earnings subsequent to migration. Immediate gains are associated with obtaining a position in a more productive firm and/or a better match between worker skills and abilities and job tasks. Accelerated gains in earnings are associated processes that take time, such as learning or job switching as workers and firms seek out better matches. Evaluated here is the expectation that the economies of large metropolitan areas provide workers with an initial productive advantage stemming from a one-time improvement in worker productivity and/or a dynamic that accelerates gains in earnings over time through the potentially entwined processes of learning and matching. A variety of datasets and methodologies, including propensity score matching, are used to evaluate patterns of income gains associated with migration to Toronto.

This paper explains the methodology for creating Geozones, which are area-based thresholds of population characteristics derived from census data, which can be used in the analysis of social or economic differences in health and health service utilization.

This Economic Insight discusses price differences between Canada and the United States. It is based on the concepts and methods from Statistics Canada's Purchasing Power Parity program.

Composite imputation is often used in business surveys. The term "composite" means that more than a single imputation method is used to impute missing values for a variable of interest. The literature on variance estimation in the presence of composite imputation is rather limited. To deal with this problem, we consider an extension of the methodology developed by Särndal (1992). Our extension is quite general and easy to implement provided that linear imputation methods are used to fill in the missing values. This class of imputation methods contains linear regression imputation, donor imputation and auxiliary value imputation, sometimes called cold-deck or substitution imputation. It thus covers the most common methods used by national statistical agencies for the imputation of missing values. Our methodology has been implemented in the System for the Estimation of Variance due to Nonresponse and Imputation (SEVANI) developed at Statistics Canada. Its performance is evaluated in a simulation study.

Although income and expenditure data provide an indication of current consumption and ability to purchase goods and services, they provide little information on the long-term ability of families to sustain themselves. The results of this survey will provide information on the net worth (wealth) of Canadian families, that is, the value of their assets less their debts.

This paper examines the objectives of the survey, how the survey has changed since 1984, the types of questions being asked and information that will be provided, as well as other survey background. An accompanying table outlines the content of the questionnaire. The intent of this paper is to describe the work done to date and the next steps for this important subject.

This document summarizes the comments and feedback received on an earlier document: Towards a new Canadian asset and debt survey - A content discussion paper. The new asset and debt survey (now called the Survey of Financial Security) is to update the wealth information on Canadian families and unattached individuals. Since the last data collection was conducted in 1984, it was essential to include a consultative process in the development of the survey in order to obtain feedback on issues of concern and to define the conceptual framework for the survey.

Comments on the content discussion paper are summarized by major theme and sections indicate how the suggestions are being incorporated into the survey or why they could not be incorporated. This paper also mentions the main objectives of the survey and provides an overview of the survey content, revised according to the feedback from the discussion paper.

The 1993 System of National Accounts (SNA) was implemented in Canada in November 1997 and all national accounts series - annual, quarterly and monthly, both at current and constant prices - were revised back to 1961. There were changes in classification of sectors and transactions, concepts and methodology. As well, we removed the statistical breaks in earlier series that arose due to our revision policy. In the spring of every year, we revise, if necessary, our national accounts series for the latest four years. Statistical breaks for earlier periods are removed only at the time of historical revisions, such as the one done in November 1997. This was the fifth and the most comprehensive historical revision of the Canadian SNA series since 1961, the earlier ones were done in the late 1960s, the late 1970s, in 1985 and in 1990. As our historical revisions have been done almost every decade, and more frequently since the 1980s, statistical breaks in the Canadian system have remained only for a short period.

This paper describes the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID) following rules, which govern who is traced and who is interviewed. It also outlines the conceptual basis for these procedures.