Health Regions: Boundaries and Correspondence with Census Geography
Health regions

Background

In recent years there has been an increasing demand for relevant health information at a 'community' level. As a result, health regions have become an important geographic unit by which health and health-related data are produced.

Health regions are administrative areas defined by provincial ministries of health. These administrative areas represent geographic areas of responsibility for hospital boards or regional health authorities. Health regions, being provincial administrative areas, are subject to change. For complete Canadian coverage, each of the northern territories as well as the province of Prince Edward Island represents a single health region.

Health region code structure

A four digit numeric code is used to uniquely identify health regions. The first two digits represent the province, and the second two digits represent the health region. These codes reflect the same codes used by the provincial ministries of health. For those provinces where a numeric code is not applicable, a two-digit code was assigned. Ontario uses a 4-digit code for public health units. This code was truncated to the last two digits for consistency in the national health region code structure. Since the public health units in Ontario and the "Ontario Health Regions" do not entirely correspond hierarchically, their codes are unique within the province.

The names of the health regions also represent the official names used by the provinces.

See Health regions in Canada, 2024

Health regions and standard geography

For the most part, health regions can be described as groupings of counties (census divisions) or municipalities (census subdivisions). This description holds especially true in Quebec, and Ontario (with minor exceptions in northern Ontario). In the Atlantic provinces and Western provinces, health regions are less likely to follow census division or census subdivision boundaries.

In this publication, we include two distinct geographies in Ontario and in British Columbia. In Ontario, Public Health Units (PHUs) serve as the health regions, while Ontario Health Regions (OHRs) are planning areas defined by Ontario Health. This distinction is important, as Public Health Units function as health regions, whereas Ontario Health Regions represent a different type of geography. In British Columbia, the Health Authorities (HAs) serve as health regions, while Health Service Delivery Areas (HSDAs) are sub-geographies within the Health Authorities.

The following table provides a detailed list, by province, of census subdivisions that fall in more than one health region.

Table 1
Detailed list of census subdivisions split by two or more health regions, 2024

Acknowledgements

Health Statistics Branch worked closely with the provincial Ministries of Health and the Statistical Geomatics Centre of Statistics Canada to produce this document.