How the collection works
Method
The method is designed to make different sources useful together without making them appear more comparable or representative than they are.
What is included
Social Determinants of Health: The Canadian Facts, 2nd edition, supplies the determinant framework. It organizes the collection; it does not restrict the project to one publisher or one kind of evidence.
Suitable sources can include public statistics, health-system and service data, provincial or local administrative releases, academic research, and community or nonprofit datasets. Each source is described by its publisher, population, geography, period, measure, unit, denominator where available, and known limits on interpretation.
Coverage ratings
The public rating summarizes how broadly a determinant is represented across provinces and territories and how much time the current sources cover. It is a rating of this data collection. It is not a rating of a jurisdiction or the people who live there.
| Rating | Condition |
|---|---|
| 0 | No published jurisdictional value is loaded. |
| 1 | Published values are loaded for no more than three jurisdictions. |
| 2 | Published values are loaded for four to ten jurisdictions. |
| 3 | Published values reach more than ten jurisdictions; the observed span is shorter than ten calendar years. |
| 4 | Published values reach more than ten jurisdictions across at least ten calendar years. |
Adding another credible source can change a rating. The ratings therefore describe the current collection rather than everything that may exist.
Missing values and different measures
A suppressed, unavailable or inapplicable value is retained as a missing value and is never changed to zero. The public interface explains a missing point when it affects a chart or calculation; internal source-review notes do not need to be part of every public page.
Measures with different definitions, denominators, geographic units or methodological bases remain separate. A chart can display them together when that comparison is useful, but a statistical test will stop when the selected values do not support the same calculation.
Statistics and calculations
The explorer uses selected data extracts. It can produce counts, rates, proportions, confidence intervals, two-rate comparisons, chi-square tests and linear trends only when the source supplies the necessary inputs and the selected rows meet the stated assumptions.
When a calculation runs, the result includes the exact inputs, formula, exclusions and limits. When it cannot run, the interface gives a plain-language reason instead of manufacturing a result.
| Measure | Source | Comparison note | Available calculations |
|---|---|---|---|
| Population | [22] | reviewed exact source series | linear_trend |
| Official poverty measure; all persons below the Market Basket Measure | [3] | separate source-defined bases | Descriptive use only |
| Low Income Measure after tax; all persons | [3] | reviewed source-defined class | linear_trend |
| Low income cut-offs after tax; all persons | [3] | reviewed source-defined class | linear_trend |
| Unemployment rate; total gender, age 15 and over, seasonally adjusted | [16] | reviewed exact source series; statistical trend not approved | Descriptive use only |
| Unemployment rate; annual baseline | [20] | single loaded baseline | Descriptive use only |
| Crude birth rate; live births per 1,000 population | [6] | exact source rate series; inferential trend review required | Descriptive use only |
| Employment insurance regular beneficiaries; both sexes, age 15 and over | [13] | reviewed exact source series; statistical trend not approved | Descriptive use only |
| Job vacancy rate | [19] | reviewed exact source series; statistical trend not approved | Descriptive use only |
| People living with food insecurity | [9] | exact source series; cadence review required | Descriptive use only |
| People reporting unmet health care needs; total gender | [10] | exact source series; cadence review required | Descriptive use only |
| Infant mortality rate; both sexes and all birth weights | [4] | reviewed historical source series | Descriptive use only |
| Adults reporting very good or excellent health; Total Indigenous identity, off reserve | [12] | exact source series; two publisher periods; trend not applicable | Descriptive use only |
| Adults reporting very good or excellent mental health; Total Indigenous identity, off reserve | [12] | exact source series; two publisher periods; trend not applicable | Descriptive use only |
| Strong sense of community belonging; Total Indigenous identity, off reserve | [12] | exact source series; two publisher periods; trend not applicable | Descriptive use only |
| Adults with a regular health care provider; Total Indigenous identity, off reserve | [12] | exact source series; two publisher periods; trend not applicable | Descriptive use only |
| Adults reporting very good or excellent health; First Nations, off reserve | [12] | exact source series; two publisher periods; trend not applicable | Descriptive use only |
| Adults reporting very good or excellent health; Métis | [12] | exact source series; two publisher periods; trend not applicable | Descriptive use only |
| Adults reporting very good or excellent health; Inuit | [12] | exact source series; two publisher periods; trend not applicable | Descriptive use only |
| Strong or somewhat strong sense of belonging to the local community | [28] | exact source series; cadence review required | Descriptive use only |
Data involving Indigenous peoples
Sources are described as specifically as their data allows. OCAP® is a First Nations instrument of the First Nations Information Governance Centre. Inuit and Métis data governance are distinct; the site does not present one instrument as applying to all Indigenous peoples.
Current limits
The collection is incomplete and will continue to expand. National statistical tables currently provide much of the shared baseline, while other publishers can provide different variables, more local detail or stronger service context. Smaller or local sources may have limited generalizability; that is recorded as a limitation rather than a reason to exclude useful evidence.