Canada’s Health by Region By: Jack Wei and Colin McClenaghan

Introduction Based 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 Vocabulary RDD: Random Digit Dialling Random Multistage-Stratified-Cluster (RMSC) Socio-demographic Characteristics Health Regions

Thesis Question Where 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 Population Individuals 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 Size 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 Groups The 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 results The peer groups were ordered into tables and compared based on these characteristics.

Analysis Once 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 Population Region Population (1996 Census in ‘000) % of Population Sample Size Each Represents 1000 People Sampled Canada Peer Group A Peer Group B Peer Group C Peer Group D Peer Group E Peer Group F Peer Group G Peer Group H Peer Group I Peer Group J

Life Expectancy – by Peer Group

Life Expectancy – by Health Region

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

Canada’s Life Expectancy: Statistics Mean life expectancy of every health region in Canada is 77.7 years Median life expectancy is 77.9 years Mode life expectancy is also 77.7 years Although 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 Behaviours of Peer Groups

Health Behaviours-Cont

Analysis of Health Behaviours Vs. 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+

SDC-Cont: Average Schooling

SDC-Cont: Own Dwelling

SDC-Cont: Unemployment Rates

SDC-Cont: Income Inequality

Conclusions It 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-Cont Peer 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-Cont Peer 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-Finale In 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.

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