Health

Description: This infographic details the prevalence of vitamin D inadequacy among the Canadian population aged 3 to 79 by focusing on risk factors as well as behaviours that can reduce the likelihood of low vitamin D.

Description:

Health Reports, published by the Health Analysis Division of Statistics Canada, is a peer-reviewed journal of population health and health services research. It is designed for a broad audience that includes health professionals, researchers, policymakers, and the general public. The journal publishes articles of wide interest that contain original and timely analyses of national or provincial/territorial surveys or administrative databases. New articles are published electronically each month.

Health Reports had an impact factor of 5.0 for 2022 and a five-year impact factor of 5.6. All articles are indexed in PubMed. Our online catalogue is free and receives more than 700,000 visits per year. External submissions are welcome.

Description: Individuals who are nearing death report a preference to be cared for and to die outside of hospital. The reasons for this preference are complex and multifactorial. This study examined differences in the use of end-of-life acute care and the location of death among residents with dementia in rural long-term care homes, compared with those in urban long-term care homes, in Ontario, Canada.

Description: Mental health disparity is associated with diverse characteristics, such as gender, socioeconomic status, Indigenous identity, immigrant status, race, disability, and sexual orientation. However, intersectional studies on women’s mental health have been rare, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic period. To fill this research gap, this study examines women’s and girls’ self-reported mental health before and during the COVID-19 pandemic using seven characteristics, including Indigenous identity, immigrant status, racialized background, LGB+ sexual orientation, disability, and socioeconomic status (low income and unemployment).

Description: This article provides insights into the rates of COVID-19 mortality among First Nations peoples and Métis living in private dwellings and the social determinants of COVID-19 mortality among these populations using data from the 2016 Canadian Census Health and Environment Cohorts linked to the Canadian Vital Statistics – Death Database from 2016 to 2021.

Description: Release published in The Daily – Statistics Canada’s official release bulletin

Description: Monthly indexes and percentage changes for selected sub-groups of the health and personal care component of the Consumer Price Index (CPI), not seasonally adjusted, for Canada, provinces, Whitehorse and Yellowknife. Data are presented for the corresponding month of the previous year, the previous month and the current month. The base year for the index is 2002=100.

Description: In collaboration with the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), this table provides Canadians and researchers with preliminary data to monitor only the confirmed cases of coronavirus (COVID-19) in Canada. Given the rapidly-evolving nature of this situation, these data are considered preliminary. This table will provide an aggregate summary of the data available in the publication 13-26-0003.

Description: In collaboration with the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), this table provides Canadians and researchers with preliminary data to monitor only the confirmed cases of coronavirus (COVID-19) in Canada. Given the rapidly-evolving nature of this situation, these data are considered preliminary. This table will provide an aggregate summary of the data available in the publication 13-26-0003.

Description: Release published in The Daily – Statistics Canada’s official release bulletin

Description:

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.

Description:

The statistical tables in the first part of this document relate to the numbers and rates of live births and stillbirths of at least twenty weeks gestation; total, general and age specific fertility rates; live births by age of mother and order of live birth; male and female birth weights by age of mother and gestation period at the time of birth; and live births by census division and counties in the province(s).

In the second part of this document, the statistical tables, for Canada, the ten provinces and the two territories, relate to the numbers and rates of deaths by marital status, age and sex; infant, neonatal, postnatal and perinatal deaths; maternal deaths; and stillbirths of at least twenty weeks gestation at the time of birth.

Description:

The special ten year anniversary edition of Canadian cancer statistics 1997 represents a collaborative effort between Statistics Canada, the National Cancer Institute of Canada, Health Canada, the Canadian Cancer Society, and provincial/territorial cancer registries. This 71 page monograph contains estimates of cancer incidence and mortality for 1997, historical (actual and estimated) data from 1969 to 1997, and selected indicators on the burden of cancer. Estimates were produced by modelling actual cancer incidence and mortality data by province for selected cancer sites. The special topic this year is a comparison of the burden of cancer in Canada in 1997 to that reported in the first edition in 1987.

Description:

The National Population Health Survey (NPHS) uses the Labour Force Survey sampling frame to draw a sample of approximately 22,000 households. The sample is distributed over four quarterly collection periods. In each household, some limited information is collected from all household members and one person, aged 12 years and over, in each household is randomly selected for a more in-depth interview.

The questionnaire includes content related to health status, use of health services, determinants of health and a range of demographic and economic information. For example, the health status information includes self-perception of health, a health status index, chronic conditions, and activity restrictions. The use of health services is probed through visits to health care providers, both traditional and non-traditional, and the use of drugs and other medications. Health determinants include smoking, alcohol use, physical activity and in the first survey, emphasis has been placed on the collection of selected psycho-social factors that may influence health, such as stress, self-esteem and social support. The demographic and economic information includes age, sex, education, ethnicity, household income and labour force status.

Description:

The survey, begun in February 1994, monitors the smoking patterns of Canadians over a 12 month period and to measure any changes in smoking resulting from the decrease in taxes in cigarettes which took place in February 1994 in some provinces. It is related to MDF 82M0006. Updates are included in the microdata file price. A guide for this microdata file is available.

Description: Using data from the 2022 Canadian Social Survey Wave 6 (Well-being and caregiving), this study explores unpaid caregiving in the past 12 months for care-dependent groups (children under 15 years old or adults and youth over 15 years old with a long-term condition or disability). This paper explores: Who are the unpaid caregivers, including "sandwich" caregivers? How much unpaid care is provided and to whom? What are the impacts of this unpaid caregiving on well-being, especially the gendered differences?

Description: Growing Up in Québec is a longitudinal population survey that began in the spring of 2021 at the Institut de la statistique du Québec. Among the children targeted by this longitudinal follow-up, some will experience developmental difficulties at some point in their lives. Those same children often have characteristics associated with higher sample attrition (low-income family, parents with a low level of education). This article describes the two main challenges we encountered when trying to ensure sufficient representativeness of these children, in both the overall results and the subpopulation analyses.

Description: Respondents to typical household surveys tend to significantly underreport their potential use of food aid distributed by associations. This underreporting is most likely related to the social stigma felt by people experiencing great financial difficulty. As a result, survey estimates of the number of recipients of that aid are much lower than the direct counts from the associations. Those counts tend to overestimate due to double counting. Through its adapted protocol, the Enquête Aide alimentaire (EAA) collected in late 2021 in France at a sample of sites of food aid distribution associations, controls the biases that affect the other sources and determines to what extent this aid is used.

Description: As the importance of subjective well-being to health continues to garner increasing attention from researchers and policy makers, community belonging has emerged as a potential population health target that has been linked to several self-rated measures of health and well-being in Canada. This study assessed novel area-level community belonging measures derived using small area estimation and examined associations with individual-level measures of community belonging and self-rated health.

Description: Canada is experiencing rapid population aging, which has a wide range of implications, including an increased need for health care services. However, very few studies have examined use of specialized health care services (e.g., visits to medical specialists, non-emergency tests, and surgeries) among older Canadians. Using data from the 2019/2020 Canadian Health Survey on Seniors, this study examines the prevalence of specialized health care service use and evaluates the association of predisposing factors, enabling resources, and need-related factors with specialized health care service use in the past 12 months among Canadians aged 65 or older.

Description: The Quality of Life Framework includes indicators that are meaningful in measuring a person's happiness and well-being like life satisfaction, for instance. Using data from Wave 10 of the Canadian Social Survey (collected from July 14, 2023 to September 07, 2023), this infographic looks at levels of life satisfaction amongst the Canadian population aged 15 years and older in Canada's 10 provinces. Survey respondents were asked: "Using a scale of 0 to 10, where 0 means 'Very dissatisfied' and 10 means 'Very satisfied,' how do you feel about your life as a whole right now?"

Description: The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted several issues among health care workers in Canada’s long-term care and seniors’ (LTCS) homes, including labour shortages, staff retention difficulties, overcrowding, and precarious working conditions. There is currently a lack of information on the health, well-being, and working conditions of health care workers in LTCS homes—many of them immigrants—and a limited understanding of the relationship between them. Using data from the 2021 Survey on Health Care Workers’ Experiences During the Pandemic, this paper examines differences between immigrant and non-immigrant workers’ health outcomes and precarious working conditions during the pandemic.

Description: The COVID-19 pandemic interrupted routine and preventive dental services until precautions could be implemented to limit virus transmission. Access to services for dental emergencies was maintained. This study describes self-reported access to oral health care services in Canada during the first 12-month period of the COVID-19 pandemic, including the reported need for routine or emergency oral health care. It also compares the access to, and the unmet need for, dental services by various sociodemographic characteristics, including by province.

Description: This infographic examines where youth aged 15 to 17 in Canada typically get their sexual health information, using data from the Canadian Health Survey on Children and Youth (CHSCY) 2019.

Description: This article provides an in-depth look at trends in fertility in Canada from 1921 to 2022. The evolution of the total fertility rate (TFR) over time is examined, with a special focus on shifts that have occurred following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The shifts observed in Canada's TFR from 2019 to 2022 are situated in an international context, and differences among the provincial and territories are explored. Also, year-over-year changes in the monthly number of births are analyzed and contrasted with the experience of other countries. Lastly, trends in age-specific fertility rates and the average age of childbearing in Canada are described, as well the cumulated fertility of different cohorts of women to date.

Description: This is an administrative survey that collects demographic information annually from all provincial and territorial vital statistics registries on all stillbirths (fetal deaths) in Canada. 2017 birth and stillbirth data for Yukon are not available. Due to improvements in methodology and timeliness, the duration of data collection has been shortened compared to previous years. As a result, there may have been fewer births and stillbirths captured by the time of the release. The 2017 data are therefore considered preliminary.

Description: This survey was designed to collect information on the health of the Canadian population and related socio-demographic information.

Description: The purpose of the Canadian Survey on Disability (CSD) is to provide information about Canadians whose everyday activities may be limited because of a condition or health-related problem. This information will be used to plan and evaluate services, programs and policies for Canadians with disabilities to help enable their full participation in society. The survey is sponsored by Employment and Social Development Canada.

Description: This was a post-censal disability survey used to identify the numbers and distribution of disabled persons in Canada residing in health related non-penal institutions and the barriers experienced by them.

Description: The data collected are used to examine trends in the smoking behaviour of the Canadian population 15 years of age and over. The primary focus of the analysis of the data is on three specific groups: non-smokers, regular cigarette smokers and occasional cigarette smokers.

Description: The objectives of the HPS were to update and expand the national and provincial baseline data on the knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, intentions and behaviours of adult Canadians on a wide range of health promotion issues.

Description: The survey's main objectives were to collect etiological, attitudinal, cognitive and behavioural information regarding drinking and driving; to collect information that is representative and useful at both the provincial and national levels; and to collect baseline data which can be used to assess trends and changes in variables over time.

Description: The purpose of this survey was to collect data on the negative consequences associated with drug and alcohol use.

Description: The two primary objectives of the General Social Survey (GSS) are: to gather data on social trends in order to monitor changes in the living conditions and well being of Canadians over time; and to provide information on specific social policy issues of current or emerging interest. The core content on health covered short and long term disability, well-being, height and weight, health problems, smoking alcohol use, physical activity, sleep and use of health care services.

Description: The main objective of the Youth Smoking Survey (YSS) is to provide current information on the smoking behaviour of students in grades 5 to 9 (in Quebec primary school grades 5 and 6 and secondary school grades 1 to 3), and to measure changes that occurred since the last time the survey was conducted. Additionally, the survey collects basic data on alcohol and drug use by students in grades 7 to 9 (in Quebec secondary 1 to 3). Results of the Youth Smoking Survey will help with the evaluation of anti-smoking and anti-drug use programs, as well as with the development of new programs.