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/."
