Health Reports

A Canadian peer-reviewed journal of population health and health services research

September 2022

Compliance with precautions to reduce the spread of COVID-19 in Canada

by Jonathan Cabot and Tracey Bushnik

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, jurisdictions around the world have implemented measures to slow the spread of the virus. With the goal of curbing the transmission of COVID-19 and reducing the burden on the health care system, Canadian provinces and territories have used various strategies, such as closing nonessential businesses, mandating the use of masks in public spaces and limiting contact among people. These strategies have had varying degrees of success in containing the virus since March 2020, with observed disparities in the seroprevalence rates across the country.

Full article PDF version
Related articles

Compliance with precautions to reduce the spread of COVID-19 in Canada

Linkage of the nationally representative Canadian Community Health Survey – Nutrition 2004 to routinely collected mortality records

by Mahsa Jessri, Deirdre Hennessy, Anan Bader Eddeen, Carol Bennett, Didier Garriguet, Claudia Sanmartin and Douglas Manuel

National health surveys and vital statistics registries are the cornerstones of surveillance, monitoring and policy development in most developed countries. National health surveys collect detailed information on a broad range of health behaviours, health statuses and sociodemographic characteristics from large, representative samples of populations, with the aim of monitoring risk factors and health status at the national level and to inform policy. However, these surveys are cross-sectional, and therefore no information on participants’ health status is collected beyond the survey date (via self-report). By contrast, vital statistics registries provide objective measures of mortality at the national population level, despite being limited in providing any information beyond basic demographic characteristics. Increasingly, vital statistics are being linked to national health surveys, thus providing a unique and prospective component to these nationally representative surveys for in-depth assessment of mortality determinants including socioeconomic and lifestyle behaviours, such as dietary intake, smoking and physical activity. Particularly, national nutrition surveys are not routinely linked with health administrative databases—this results in a lack of evidence on the relationship between health and unhealthy diets at the population level.

Full article PDF version
Related articles

Linkage of the Nationally-Representative Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS)-Nutrition 2004 to Routinely-Collected Mortality Records

  • Rotermann M, Sanmartin C, Carriere G, Trudeau R, St-Jean H, Saidi A, et al. Two approaches to linking census and hospital data. Health Reports. 2014; 25(10): 3-14.
  • Wilkins K, Shields M, Rotermann M. Smokers’ use of acute care hospitals—a prospective study. Health Reports. 2009; 20(4): 75-83.
  • Tjepkema M, Wilkins R. Remaining life expectancy at age 25 and probability of survival to age 75, by socio-economic status and Aboriginal ancestry. Health Reports. 2011; 22(4): 31-6.
  • Ng E. The healthy immigrant effect and mortality rates. Health Reports. 2011; 22(4): 25-9.

An analysis of cannabis home cultivation and associated risks in Canada, before and after legalization

by Nick Cristiano, Karen Pacheco, Elle Wadsworth, Christina Schell, Nayani Ramakrishnan, Elissa Faiazza, Elisabeth Beauchamp, and Sarah Wood

In October 2018, the Cannabis Act came into effect, legalizing the use and sale of cannabis for non-medical purposes in Canada. Included in the act are provisions for home cultivation, allowing up to four plants to be grown per household, with each province and territory given the power to enact additional restrictions. Quebec and Manitoba, for example, prohibit home cultivation for non-medical purposes, while the other provinces allow up to four plants to be grown. According to the 2019 National Cannabis Survey (NCS), approximately 10% of Canadians who use cannabis grow it for themselves or have someone grow it for them.

Full article PDF version
Related articles

An analysis of cannabis home cultivation and associated risks in Canada, before and after legalization

[an error occurred while processing this directive]
Date modified: