Question
I have a researcher looking at the Households and the Environments survey (2013). Is it possible to get a breakdown of the approximately 3100 "non-CMA" responses for question EH_Q02 A through G by Census Division or Dissemination Area?
Answer
Analysis at the Dissemination Area (DA) level is not possible. We do not have DAs attached to records on our master file so there would have to be some cost-recoverable work undertaken to achieve this. However, we would recommend against this as DAs are generally small geographic units, which means it is extremely unlikely that there would be many, if any, DAs with a sufficient number of records to be releasable, assuming that the CVs would meet our release criteria. Given that the area of interest is non-CMA Ontario, I would be surprised if any met this criteria.
Analysis at the Census Division (CD) level is, in theory, possible. Constraining the analysis to only non-CMA households in Ontario will result in many CDs having variables that will be flagged as “use with caution” or unreleasable due to our data quality guidelines. However, this is work that we could undertake on a cost-recoverable basis with the understanding that the costs would be payable by the client regardless of the number of releasable values in the results. Thus, I would not advise this as it could be quite costly and not produce satisfactory results. Still, if there is interest in pursuing this, please let me know and I will prepare an estimate.
If the researcher is eligible to use the RDC, they could undertake the analysis at the CD level themselves. The 2013 HES microdata in the RDCs contains the necessary geographic variables and we could provide some advice on how to work with the non-CMA households in Ontario.
Finally, the 2013 release (http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/150310/dq150310a-eng.htm) talks about how households heat their homes, stating that “those from Ontario and in the West mostly opt for forced air furnaces burning natural gas”. In particular, it notes that the forced air furnaces were the dominant type of heating system in Ontario (73% of households) and that, “[i]n general, natural gas is available to most households from Ontario to British Columbia”. I know this is not as specific as the researcher is interested in, but he (or she) may find it helpful.
