Tuesday, August 29, 2017

Health Canada CUBE

Question
We have Human Kinetics researchers who have a lead on a new database which I can’t track down. Any tips on this would be appreciated.

They attended a Health Canada presentation last year and were told that 7-8 large health related surveys, including Canadian Health Measures / biometric data, would be made available this calendar year for extracting via a CUBE(S) at an aggregate data level. I have checked the Health Canada web site and do not see new CUBE datasets.

Would my colleagues or the Statistics Canada Health Division know whether this new initiative has been implemented and is available?

Response
I am not aware of such an initiative unfortunately, so I have reached out to colleagues in Health Statistics to inquire if they know of something. I was able, however, to find on the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) website data cubes: Data Cubes http://infobase.phac-aspc.gc.ca/cubes/index-eng.html

Data Cubes are interactive databases that quickly allow users to create tables and graphs using their web browser. These online analytical processing cubes, or OLAP cubes, produce output displayed in a table format with a corresponding graph.

Chronic Disease Infobase Data Cubes contain many different types of Chronic Disease health indicator information. The hope is to make available Data Cubes containing data such as mortality, morbidity and risk factor information for chronic diseases, as well as their associated demographic variables (such as age group, gender, and geography).

Followup (Sept 1, 2017)
In follow up, here is the response I received through my contacts in Health Statistics division:

"No one up here has any knowledge of any HC CUBE plans. I do know that HC has the intention of making their most recent biomonitoring data available through the Open Data Portal. However, PHAC (Public Health Agency of Canada) has a public data cube on health inequality that contains aggregate data from a variety of STC (mainly HSD) surveys. This might be what the researcher is referencing. The cube and related information can be found here: http://infobase.phac-aspc.gc.ca/health-inequalities/."

Thursday, August 24, 2017

Survey of Emergency Preparedness and Resilience in Canada (SEPR)

Question
One of our researchers is looking for the 2014 Survey of Emergency Preparedness and Resilience (SEPR) data. All I was able to find is the report. Is the data available? How can we obtain it?

Response
The SEPR was developed in partnership with Defence Research and Development Canada's Centre for Security Science and Public Safety Canada. Unfortunately, a public use microdata file (PUMF) was not created, nor were tables produced for CANSIM. The following article as noted was made available:

The Juristat article "Emergency preparedness in Canada, 2014" (Catalogue number85-002-X) http://www5.statcan.gc.ca/olc-cel/olc.action?ObjId=85-002-X201500114234&ObjType=47&lang=en&limit=0, is now available.

[To access the above], from the Browse by key resource module of our website under Publications, choose All subjects, then Crime and justice and then Juristat.

And there are a few tables available through the data release announcement in the Daily: http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/151028/dq151028a-eng.htm.

Custom tabulations, which are cost recovery, may be available. And the masterfile is available through the Research Data Centre program, see http://www.statcan.gc.ca/eng/rdc/data.

Tuesday, August 22, 2017

Greenhouse gas emissions by province

Question
I’m helping a user who is interested in finding data similar to CANSIM table 153-0114, but at the provincial level – specifically for Ontario 2013. Is this available or could it be produced as a custom request?

Response
Subject matter has confirmed that unfortunately greenhouse gas emissions 153-0114 is not yet available by province. That is on their work plan for this upcoming year. Energy use by province will be available as a custom tabulation following our PFA release in September.

Canadian Business Count by Revenue & non-academic patron

Question
I have had a request today from a member of the public (non-academic) looking for Canadian Business Count by Revenue. The closest publicly available data set that was located was the Business Counts by Employee Size: http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/170814/dq170814b-eng.htm

Would our non-academic client be able to request a custom tab for the “Business Counts by Revenue” through Statistics Canada? (He is happy to pay to get this data). Since this would be a non-DLI request, is there another Statistics Canada department or staff I can refer him to? Many thanks for your help!

Response
For custom request, I would advise them to contact Advisory services. They are able to determine if the request can be completed from a regional office or from subject matter division. Below is their contact information:

General inquiries: Our agents are available Monday to Friday (except holidays) from 8:30 am to 4:30 pm.

Online request form:
Email STATCAN.infostats-infostats.STATCAN@canada.ca

Telephone:
(toll free) 1-800-263-1136
(international) 1-514-283-8300

Papers discussing challenges of historical census research

Question
As you know, there are some special challenges associated with exploring the Canadian census through both time and geography dimensions. Are you aware of any papers that discuss these challenges that I could share with a group of graduate students?

Some context: I'm helping a GIS professor develop a lab for her graduate students in which they will use census data to make historical comparisons. For the lab, we'll likely stick to 1990s and 2000s data, but the students might explore further back for their own projects. They will be mostly interested in community-level data, so we're likely to be exploring data from dissemination areas or enumeration areas. The professor would like to assign some reading material to her students and has asked me for suggestions.

I'm already very aware of the challenges and obstacles students might encounter as they work on their own projects (and as we prepare our own instructions for the lab), and I have some good slides to share with the students. However, in my "papers and fun material to share with students when I can assign them readings before I show up" collection, I don't have much about the difficulties of historical census research. And this feels like the kind of topic for which other people might already have some references they could share.

Response
I am not familiar with other sources, but can recommend the following Statcan pubs:

From the Geography Working Paper Series (92F0138M):
1. The Population Ecumene of Canada: Exploring the Past and Present: http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/92f0138m/92f0138m2008003-eng.htm
2. Geographic Structures As Census Variables: Using Geography to Analyse Social and Economic Processes: http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/92f0138m/92f0138m2001001-eng.pdf

Also of potential interest:
Appendix 2.0 Census of Population and National Household Survey questionnaire content and derived variables since Confederation: http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2016/ref/dict/app-ann/a2_0-eng.cfm

Regarding historical comparison of geographic areas:
The boundaries and names of geographic areas can change from one census to the next. For this, you have the correspondence files, http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2011/geo/ref/cor-eng.cfm, which contain unique identifiers for the current census geographic area and the corresponding unique identifier for the previous census geographic area.

And presentations from the DLI Training Repository:
1. DLI National Training Day 2014 - Historical Census Statistics, by A Guindon & S Mowers: https://cudo.carleton.ca/dli-training/3713
2. Creating Historical Digital Census Boundary Maps for Canada, by A Petrov & L Ruus: https://cudo.carleton.ca/dli-training/2386
3. The Canadian Century Research Infrastructure: Locating and Interpreting Historical Microdata, by N Farnworth: https://cudo.carleton.ca/dli-training/2511

Thursday, August 17, 2017

GSS Time Use (GSS) (Cycle 29)

Question
I am trying to track down GSS Time Use - Cycle 29 for a researcher, but it does not appear to be in the usual places (mirror, odesi, EFT). Here is the announcement: http://www23.statcan.gc.ca/imdb/p2SV.pl?Function=getSurvey&SDDS=4503#a2

Response
According to the Tentative release dates page: as of May 2017, the PUMF is due Fall 2017 (http://www.statcan.gc.ca/eng/dli/prod_date).

Followup
The Masterfile has been released in June. We expect the PUMF to be released late September, or early fall. An exact release date has not yet been released.

Thursday, August 10, 2017

CSD Correspondence files 1976 - 2006

Question
I have a researcher who is seeking a correspondence file linking 2011 or 2006 CSD codes to 1976 CSD codes. My suspicion is that any correspondence files that exist are specific to successive Censuses (i.e. one Census to the previous Census) and do not span the broader time period being asked about. I’d be pleased to hear otherwise.

Response
The short answer is correct, in general we do not have correspondence files for time spans longer than one census to the next. Also, we normally do not do a correspondence file at the CSD level. We do it for the lowest levels of geography, EAs, DAs, or DissBs. So, there is no such product that we can just send out to the client. That being said, here are a couple of other points to consider:

1. The concept of the Standard Geographical Classification (SGC) came into existence around 1971/1976. The CSD information I see available then does not follow the standard Pr(2)/CD(2)/CSD(3) code structure that we use today. I believe the CSDs that existed then are conceptually the same… municipalities, indigenous reserves, etc. However, I would need to confirm that with subject matter, to make sure the client was getting the relationship that was requested.

2. We do have the GAF from 1976 which does contain rep pts for each EA, and the code for the CSD that an EA belongs to. In theory, we could use those rep pts, and overlay them with the 2006/2011 CSD boundaries, and do an analysis to create a relationship between the 1976 CSDs and 2006/2011 CSDs.

Normally custom work for clients external to StatCan goes through the Regional Offices since it would be cost recovery. No such file, but one could be created (not sure by whom) if the client requests it.

Friday, August 4, 2017

Changes to monthly LFS 2017 data files

Notice
It has been brought to the attention of the DLI team that Labour Force Survey (LFS) data from January 2017 – July 2017 contained errors with numerical variables. Variables such as HRLYARN and UHRSMAIN were missing decimal place holders. As such, their values were off by a factor of 100. We have since fixed the issue and re-released the data on the DLI FTP site.

The updated files are named v2 and located here:
/MAD_PUMF_FMGD_DAM/Root/3701_LFS_EPA/1976-2017/data/micro2017-01-v2.zip /MAD_PUMF_FMGD_DAM/Root/3701_LFS_EPA/1976-2017/data/ micro2017-02-v2.zip /MAD_PUMF_FMGD_DAM/Root/3701_LFS_EPA/1976-2017/data/micro2017-03-v2.zip /MAD_PUMF_FMGD_DAM/Root/3701_LFS_EPA/1976-2017/data/micro2017-04-v2.zip /MAD_PUMF_FMGD_DAM/Root/3701_LFS_EPA/1976-2017/data/micro2017-05-v2.zip /MAD_PUMF_FMGD_DAM/Root/3701_LFS_EPA/1976-2017/data/micro2017-06-v2.zip /MAD_PUMF_FMGD_DAM/Root/3701_LFS_EPA/1976-2017/data/micro2017-07-v2.zip

These changes will be reflected in NESSTAR shortly. We will notify the list when this is complete.

National and Provincial Multipliers 2013

Question
I have a researcher inquiring when the National and Provincial Multipliers for 2013 will be available. It looks like they were released on June 9th, 2017.

Response
They were indeed released on June 9th 2017. I just received a large inventory of tables from subject matter this week. You can find the National and Provincial Multipliers for 2013 on the FTP site: /MAD_DLI_IDD_DAM/Root/other_autres/1401_IO_ES/2013/. They were uploaded this morning.

Followup, August 8, 2017
As a follow up to last week’s communication, I’m happy to report all Statistics Canada’s Input-output tables are now available for the DLI community. They are currently available on the DLI FTP site. (Path: /MAD_DLI_IDD_DAM/root/other_autres/1401_IO_ES/) All holdings are organized by product number. Yearly releases are grouped within said product folders.

Minimum Wage

Question
We have a student looking for minimum wage rates in Thunder Bay. We've been able to find median income for Thunder Bay and hourly wages by province but nothing for Thunder Bay.

Response
Try Hourly Minimum Wages in CANADA for Adult Workers.