Canada’s Health by Region

By: Jack Wei and Colin McClenaghan

IntroductionBased on secondary cross-sectional data from a year 2000 survey “Canadian Community Health Survey” by Statcan and the 1996 Census.Quantitative and discrete data.Objective: To obtain information on the general healthiness of Canadians and determine how socio-demographic factors contribute. Presentation: Go through each stage of how this survey was conducted, how we isolated the relevant variables for our project and the final results that were concluded.

Important VocabularyRDD: Random Digit Dialling

Random Multistage-Stratified-Cluster (RMSC)

Socio-demographic Characteristics

Health Regions

Thesis QuestionWhere in Canada has the highest life expectancy and how is this related to socio-demographic characteristics, and health behaviors?

It is hypothesized that constituents of urban regions with high to moderate population will have the highest life expectancies. These regions will have more preferable socio-demographic characteristics and health behaviours which will lead to longer lives.

Target PopulationIndividuals age 12+ who live in private dwellings.

People living on crown lands, Indian reserves, and full time members of the Canadian armed forces were excluded.

Survey covers 98% of Canadian population aged 12+.

Sampling Method

Random Multistage-Stratified-Cluster (RMSC) sampling and RDD (Random Digit Dialling) sampling.

RMSC represented 88% of the sample and RDD represented 12%.

The RMSC sampling were face to face interviews and RDD sampling were telephone interviews.

Sample Size131 535 people were surveyed across Canada.

This number was distributed proportionally in between the health regions.

Approximate 0.51% of Canada’s population.

The sample size may seem small but it is actually very large due to the degree of precision.

Bias

Non-Response Bias: applicable only with RDD.

Sampling Bias

Non-Sampling Bias

Peer GroupsThe collected data was divided into peer groups.The peer groups are based on socio-demographic characteristics and not only geographic.Peer groups were from different health regions with similar populations, proportions of aboriginal and visible minority populations, percentage of the population aged 65 and older, and income inequality.

Grouping the data…The survey data was then taken and applied to each peer group.The life expectancies derived from the 1996 census were also calculated for each peer group.Statistics for smoking, obesity, exercise and heavy drinking were calculated for each peer group from survey resultsThe peer groups were ordered into tables and compared based on these characteristics.

AnalysisOnce the data was classified by peer group, health behaviours were compared with the life expectancies.The health behaviours were also compared to their sociological and demographic characteristics.Results were drawn through correlations between life expectancy and health behaviours.Overall conclusions were made connecting the socio-demographic characteristics to life expectancy.

Canada’s PopulationRegion Population

(1996 Census in ‘000)

% of Population

Sample Size Each Represents 1000 People Sampled

Canada 25802 100.0 131535  

Peer Group A

4564 17.7 8229

Peer Group B

4609 17.9 13152

Peer Group C

52 0.2 1637

Peer Group D

624 2.4 6123

Peer Group E

672 2.6 10535

Peer Group F

515 2.0 8615

Peer Group G

1355 5.3 14385

Peer Group H

5843 22.6 26371

Peer Group I

6001 23.3 34622

Peer Group J

1568 6.1 7866

Life Expectancy – by Peer Group

Life Expectancy of Peer Groups

78.879.6

71.8

77 77.876.7

77.9 77.778.878.3

66

68

70

72

74

76

78

80

82

A B C D E F G H I J

Peer Groups

Lif

e E

xp

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cy

(Ye

ars

)

Peer Group

Life Expectancy – by Health Region

Cou

nt

20

40

60

80

100

Life_expectancy64 66 68 70 72 74 76 78 80 82 84

Collection 1 Histogram

Kingston’s Life Expectancy

Life expectancy of Kingstonians according to the 1996 census was 78.1 years.To see how Kingston ranks with respect to the rest of Canada, we calculated the z-score and then the percentile.Z-score = K-town Life Exp - Mean Life Exp)/Standard deviation

= (78.1 – 77.7)/(1.89) = 0.4/1.89 = 0.212

The z-score of 0.212 corresponds to the 58th percentile if the data is normally distributed.

Canada’s Life Expectancy: Statistics

Mean life expectancy of every health region in Canada is 77.7 yearsMedian life expectancy is 77.9 yearsMode life expectancy is also 77.7 yearsAlthough not normal distributed, the mode and mean are the same

Life Expectancy - Analysis

Peer group B has the highest life expectancy of all peer groups at 79.6 years. This peer group consists of health regions such as: Ottawa, York and Calgary.Peer group C has the lowest life expectancy of 71.8 years. This peer group consists of regions in northern Quebec, Manitoba and Nunavut.

Health Behaviours

Health Behaviour of Canadians

22%

15%

22%16%

33%Daily Smoking(12+)Obese (age20+)

Infrequent exercise(12+)

Heavy drinking(18+) Others

Health Behaviours of Peer Groups

Daily Smoking (age 12+)

39%26%26%

25%23%

25%23%

22%

18%18%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%

A

C

E

G

I

Pe

er

Gro

up

s

Percent of Population

J

I

H

G

F

E

D

C

B

A

Health Behaviours-Cont

Obese (age 20+)

26%21%

22%19%

20%15%

17%16%

11%14%

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30%

A

C

E

G

I

Pe

er

Gro

up

s

Percent of Population

J

I

H

G

F

E

D

C

B

A

Health Behaviours-Cont

Infrequent Exercise (age 12+)

27%28%

22%18%

20%24%

19%17%

27%19%

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30%

A

C

E

G

I

Pe

er

Gro

up

s

Percent of Population

J

I

H

G

F

E

D

C

B

A

Health Behaviours-Cont

Heavy Drinking (age 18+)

22%20%

19%21%

20%17%

18%18%

12%15%

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25%

A

C

E

G

I

Pe

er

Gro

up

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Percent of Population

J

I

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D

C

B

A

Analysis of Health BehavioursVs. Life Expectancy

Peer Group C was worst in almost all health behaviours and also has the lowest life expectancy.Peer group B has the greatest life expectancy and ranked high, top 3, in all the health behaviours.A notable observation is that Peer group A ranks second worst with 27% of the population receiving infrequent exercise, and still has a very high life expectancy.

Socio-demographic Characteristics

Socio-demographic characteristics are human social behaviours and the physical make up of the population.

The characteristics of each region were used to relate and classify them into peer groups.

Socio-demographic Characteristics–Age 65+

0.00%

2.00%

4.00%

6.00%

8.00%

10.00%

12.00%

14.00%

16.00%

18.00%

Per

cen

t P

op

ula

tio

n

A B C D E F G H I J

Peer Groups

Population 65+ Within Peer Groups

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

SDC-Cont: Average Schooling

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

Yea

rs

A B C D E F G H I J

Peer Groups

Average Schooling Within Peer Groups

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

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I

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SDC-Cont: Own Dwelling

0.00%

10.00%

20.00%

30.00%

40.00%

50.00%

60.00%

70.00%

80.00%

Pe

rce

nt

Po

pu

lati

on

A B C D E F G H I J

Peer Groups

Property Ownership Within Peer Groups

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

SDC-Cont: Unemployment Rates

0.00%

5.00%

10.00%

15.00%

20.00%

25.00%

30.00%

Un

em

plo

ye

d

A B C D E F G H I J

Peer Groups

Unemployment Within Peer Groups

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

SDC-Cont: Income Inequality

0.00%

5.00%

10.00%

15.00%

20.00%

25.00%

Pe

rce

nt

Po

pu

lati

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A B C D E F G H I J

Peer Groups

Population Income Inequality Within Peer Groups

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

ConclusionsIt is evident that where you live greatly effects your life expectancy.

The peer groups differentiate in life expectancy by 7.8 years.

Constituents of peer group B have the highest life expectancies in Canada.

Members of Peer Group C have the lowest.

Conclusions-ContPeer group B’s life expectancy is so high because they are among the lowest rates of daily smoking, heavy drinking, obesity and infrequent exercise.

Peer group B’s good health behaviours can be attributed to having a very low unemployment rate and very high average years of schooling.

Conclusions-ContPeer group C’s life expectancy is very low because they have the highest rates of daily smokers, heavy drinkers and obese.

These Health behaviours can be linked to high income inequality and low average years of schooling.

Conclusions-FinaleIn the end, Peer groups where the greater percentage of the population had less money, schooling and job training are less educated on good health behaviours and had worse access to health care. This caused life expectancy to drop drastically. Peer group C, which contains northern regions of Quebec and Nunavut, had poor access to health care causing infrequent checkups and late diagnosis of health problems. Peer Group B, which contained larger urban areas like Ottawa and York, have exemplary access to health care in proportion to their population aiding with the quick diagnosis and treatment of illnesses.

Curriculum Expectation That Could Not Be Applied

Since the sample size was so large, and it was secondary data, we could not create Venn diagrams or calculate permutations.Permutations would not have been helpful to the analysis of the data, thus were not done.Overlaps were not shown for the data categories, thus we could not do Venn diagrams.

THE END