Measuring Social Determinants of Health within Statistics Canada

The measurement and reporting of social determinants of health and the study of inequalities in health outcomes requires data systems that enable researchers to bring together information on health and mortality outcomes with information on health and health-risk behaviours and with key stratification variables including income, education, employment, immigration status and ethnicity. A population-health framework guided the development of Statistics Canada's health data over the past twenty years. Statistics Canada is the central statistical agency within the government of Canada responsible for both economic and social statistics. Advances included the launch of longitudinal and cross-sectional health surveys and the growth and development of databases supporting ecological and unit-record data linkage, such as the Census of Population, the Cancer Registry, vital statistics, and acute care hospital admissions. Thus, the impact has been the growth of a body of data and published research exploring and monitoring social determinants of health and health inequalities. This presentation will describe and explain the measurement and reporting of social determinants health by Statistics Canada.