Impact of COVID-19 on Home Life

Question:

I have a researcher who is looking to write a gendered analysis of work and home life during the covid19 pandemic and how people’s home and work lives are affected by the shift to work at home, no school, no daycare, etc. She has seen Canadian Perspectives Survey Series 1: COVID-19 and working from home, 2020 (https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/200417/dq200417a-eng.htm?CMP=mstatcan) and is wondering if there is any other related data to the topic of how lives are being affected by the shift to work at home. Most of the data I am finding is related to testing, cases, and deaths, and economic and labour force impacts. Does anyone know of any other sources for data on impacts of home life? 

Answer:

I would be interested to know what is out there from others.  I wish there were more current data on gender and home life during the COVID-19 pandemic.

I noted this libguide: COVID-19 and child welfare > tab “Journals and academic research”.

The gendered COVID-19 data that comes to mind is care workers in long term care (LTC) homes, where there were plenty of pre-existing issues (like pay and working conditions). 

To take the example of Ontario,

Data:

March 31 update, April 2nd update, April 7th update (Ontario).

“Hospital and Long-Term Care Health Care Workers & Long-Term Care Residents Infected with COVID-19”

• Three dire reports on COVID-19 cases among LTC seniors and workers. 

Ontario conditions and protections:

April 9th critique

April 15th Action plan of the Ontario government and follow-up critique.

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CanCOVID is an expert network of Canadian COVID-19 researchers, clinical collaborators, and healthcare stakeholders from across the country.  The network is designed to support collaboration, coordination and communication in Canada. Researchers can engaged on the twitter group and there is a dedicated Slack channel for the community - perhaps other researchers in this space would know of data that exist to support the researcher's topic area. 

Web: https://cancovid.ca/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/CanCovid (@CanCovid) 

Designated Market Area Regions

Question:

I have a Business faculty member searching for DMA (Designated Market Area) regions in Canada. This seems to be more of a U.S. designation, but there are some sites (of arguably dubious appearance) offering something related, such as the following: https://dmatoolkits.com/downloads/canada-dma-database/

Does anyone know if there as good, authoritative data available?

Answer:

According to the Dictionary of Marketing Communications (Sage Publications, 2004) the term Designated Market Area was created and owned by Nielsen Media Research and is (was?) used to report television audience size. I believe it only applies to US geographies. Esri has Nielsen data in ArcGIS. 
See also: https://www.nielsen.com/us/en/intl-campaigns/dma-maps/

Wait Time Data

Question:
I have a researcher looking for data on wait times in clinics and hospital emergency rooms (i.e. how long does a patient have to wait to get treated for non-critical conditions). I have found some data from CIHI (see links below) and the Ontario Data Portal (most of which is available through CIHI). Statistics Canada has the Health Services Access Survey which has data current to 2017. Most of this data is related to emergency rooms or for priority services like hip replacements or other surgeries. I am having trouble is finding data related to wait times in clinics and non-critical conditions. Does anyone have any other suggestions than what I have already found? Or is this what is publicly available? This is a summer project so requesting data through CIHI is probably not feasible.

CIHI data

• NACRS emergency Department Visits and Length of Stay, 2018-2019 - https://www.cihi.ca/sites/default/files/document/nacrs-2018-2019-quickstats-en-web_0.xlsx. This is an excel table that is available for download. 
• National Ambulatory Care Reporting System (NACRS) - https://www.cihi.ca/en/national-ambulatory-care-reporting-system-metadata
• The NACRS contating data for all hospital-based and community-based ambulatory care, including emergency rooms. The data is fairly up to date, however, you have to request it from CIHI.
• Wait times for priority procedures - https://www.cihi.ca/en/wait-times-for-priority-procedures-in-canada. Data is available to for download.

Answer:

You will find some data for Quebec hospitals here

https://www.indexsante.ca/urgences/https://www.indexsante.ca/urgences/

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Canadian Community Health Survey -2016, 2014 (and probably earlier) asks respondents regarding wait times for access/referral to medical specialists, tests and surgeries for various health conditions - might this be useful?

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Does this resource give you anything more than what you already have?  https://yourhealthsystem.cihi.ca/hsp/indepth?lang=en&_ga=2.111571329.445078991.1586907626-930415662.1586907626#/ (high-level link)

It let’s you zero in on regions, hospitals or care centres across Canada for:

• Emergency Department Wait Time for Physician Initial Assessment (90% Spent Less, in Hours)
• Total Time Spent in Emergency Department for Admitted Patients (90% Spent Less, in Hours)

I selected the Kingston Health Sciences Centre from the high level. However, these indicators don’t differentiate for non-critical conditions.

New Release: APS 2017

We are pleased to inform you that the following product is now available.

Aboriginal Peoples Survey (APS) 2017

The 2017 APS is a national survey of First Nations people living off reserve, Métis and Inuit aged 15 years and over. The 2017 APS represents the fifth cycle of the survey and focuses on transferable skills, practical training, use of information technology, Aboriginal language attainment, and participation in the Canadian economy.

The 2017 APS collected unique and detailed data on employment, education, and health which are not available from any other source. For example, although the 2016 Census of Population collected data on certain aspects of labour market participation, the 2017 APS addresses additional topics such as job satisfaction, multiple employment, past job attachment, and willingness to move to improve career opportunities.

The APS provides key statistics to inform policy and programming activities aimed at improving the well-being of Aboriginal Peoples. It is a valuable source of information for a variety of stakeholders, including Aboriginal organizations, communities, service providers, researchers, governments, and the general public.

The survey is carried out by Statistics Canada with funding provided by three federal departments: Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada & Indigenous Services Canada (formerly Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada), and Employment and Social Development Canada.

EFT:  /MAD_PUMF_FMGD_DAM/Root/3250_APS_EAPA/2017

New Release: LFS March 2020

We are pleased to inform you that the following product is now available.

Labour Force Survey (LFS) - March 2020

This public use microdata file contains non-aggregated data for a wide variety of variables collected from the Labour Force Survey (LFS). The LFS collects monthly information on the labour market activities of Canada's working age population. This product is for users who prefer to do their own analysis by focusing on specific subgroups in the population or by cross-classifying variables that are not in our catalogued products. The Labour Force Survey estimates are based on a sample, and are therefore subject to sampling variability. Estimates for smaller geographic areas, industries, occupations or cross tabulations will have more variability. For an explanation of sampling variability of estimates, and how to use standard errors to assess this variability, consult the Data Quality section in the Guide to the Labour Force Survey.

EFT: /MAD_PUMF_FMGD_DAM/Root/3701_LFS_EPA/1976-2020/data/micro2020/micro2020-03.zip

Nesstar Webview: Labour Force Survey (LFS), March 2020

New Release: CTNS 2019

We are pleased to inform you that the following product is now available.

Canadian Tobacco and Nicotine Survey (CTNS) 2019

The information collected in this survey will be used to fill important data gaps related to vaping, cannabis, and tobacco usage. The data will inform policy and provide a current snapshot of use across Canada.

Until 2017, Statistics Canada conducted the Canadian Tobacco, Alcohol and Drugs Survey (CTADS), which collected data on tobacco as well as alcohol and drug use in Canada. In 2019, the Canadian Alcohol and Drugs Survey (CADS) was conducted to collect data on alcohol and drug use independently from the Canadian Tobacco and Nicotine Survey (CTNS) which was conducted to primarily collect data on tobacco and nicotine.

EFT:  /MAD_PUMF_FMGD_DAM/Root/5305_CTNS_ECTN/2019

Individual Remittances outside of Canada

Question:
Looking for some advice from the group here.  I have a research team who is looking for data on money sent to other countries as gifts, ideally at the individual level but aggregated would be okay.    Immigration and/or citizenship status is critical here

The SHS has a question on this, with its variable (MC_Q020) in the master file but also grouped into MG001 in the PUMF.   Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like immigration status/place-of-birth/citizenship is asked within the SHS.   (Please correct me if I’m wrong, though!)

Can anyone suggest a potential way forward for the researcher via an existing alternate dataset?   The 2013 GSS (Giving) has the socioeconomic variables but no variables on giving to people/org’s outside of Canada itself.

Answer:
This is an interesting report published by Statistics Canada.  Study on International Money Transfers. There are information about remittances as gifts, as percentages, broken down by region and countries. 
URL : https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/89-657-x/89-657-x2019007-eng.pdf

New Scholars Portal Datasets

Dalhousie University Libraries has recently made three datasets available via Scholars Portal Dataverse:

1. 2016 Census of Population ADA and DA PDF maps for Nova Scotia counties. The ADA reference maps were available for the first time with the 2016 Census via the Statistics Canada website. According to the Statistics Canada website, DA reference maps were not produced for the 2016 census. However, we were provided with Nova Scotia DA reference maps after we contacted the agency. These datasets have both ADA and DA PDF maps for Nova Scotia counties, with a readme file for corresponding DA to ADA:

https://dataverse.scholarsportal.info/dataverse/census2016maps/

2. Crime Severity Index values ranking for communities with population over 10000 (2009-2018). The principal behind the Crime Severity Index (CSI) was to measure the seriousness of crime reported to the police year to year by Statistics Canada. Data for Crime Severity Index for population over 10000 (CSI_over10000) was first published by Statistics Canada in 2009. However, CSI_over10000 data is not publicly available from Statistics Canada website. This dataset will be kept up-to-date as new tables are released:

https://dataverse.scholarsportal.info/dataverse/CSI/

3. Fisherman’s Work Survey (1982). This is a Southwestern Nova Scotian fisheries labour survey conducted by Dalhousie researchers. This dataset contains the Nova Scotia Fisherman’s Work survey data in SPSS (sav) and text (csv) format, coding of the variables, and selected literature. The survey data has 150 variables and 597 observations:

https://dataverse.scholarsportal.info/dataverse/fishermansworksurvey

Hopefully, these data will be useful for researchers at your institutions. The first two Statistics Canada datasets are licensed under the Statistics Canada Open License. The Fisherman’s Work Survey data is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. The published article for “Work Satisfaction and Community Attachment among Fishermen in SW NS” is not licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, but is still openly available via Dataverse.

Graduation Rates

Question:
I’m trying to help a student locate secondary and post-secondary graduation rates at the national level back to 1976. I can find figures back to 1992, but nothing earlier.

Answer:
The Elementary-secondary school enrollment publication is available as a PDF at Government of Canada Publications - http://publications.gc.ca/site/eng/9.814408/publication.html. It covers 1974-1992.

Help with Information about Results of Mental Health Treatment

Question:
I have a question from a student who would like to get stats on the number of patients who have seen a psychologist or other mental health professional or have receive treatment for a mental health condition who have then completed the treatment and are then better.  I don't know that one can say cured as some mental health situations are chronic. 

She is concerned about the effectiveness of the mental health system and whether treatment really works.

Are there any stats around this that you know of?  If so, where would I find them.  

I would appreciate any thoughts you may have on this.

Thanks you in advance.

Answer:

Mental Health Commission of Canada published this report in 2015 called Informing the Future: Mental Health Indicators for Canada https://www.mentalhealthcommission.ca/sites/default/files/Informing%252520the%252520Future%252520-%252520Mental%252520Health%252520Indicators%252520for%252520Canada_0.pdf

You might find some useful data in it.

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Can't speak to any admin-type statistics or clinical data, but the 2014 (2012?) CCHS (Mental Health special topic) and even every annual CCHS has questions for self-reported mental health issues, interactions w/ health professionals/government agencies/various therapies tried/outcomes and perceptions, etc.

New files on Statistics Canada Nesstar

Hello,

We are pleased to inform you that the following are now available on the Statistics Canada Nesstar WebView site.

• Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID) 1996, 1997 & 1998 PUMF
• Survey of Displaced Workers (SDW) 1986 PUMF (English only)
• Survey of Household Energy Use (SHEU) 1993 PUMF (English only)

Should you have any questions or comments, feel free to contact us.

LFS February 2020

Hello,

We are pleased to inform you that the following product is now available.

Labour Force Survey (LFS) - February 2020

This public use microdata file contains non-aggregated data for a wide variety of variables collected from the Labour Force Survey (LFS). The LFS collects monthly information on the labour market activities of Canada's working age population. This product is for users who prefer to do their own analysis by focusing on specific subgroups in the population or by cross-classifying variables that are not in our catalogued products. The Labour Force Survey estimates are based on a sample, and are therefore subject to sampling variability. Estimates for smaller geographic areas, industries, occupations or cross tabulations will have more variability. For an explanation of sampling variability of estimates, and how to use standard errors to assess this variability, consult the Data Quality section in the Guide to the Labour Force Survey.

EFT: /MAD_PUMF_FMGD_DAM/Root/3701_LFS_EPA/1976-2020/data/micro2020-02.zip

Nesstar Webview: Labour Force Survey (LFS), February 2020

WDS Decommission

The Web Data Server (WDS) will be decommissioned by the end of the fiscal year. All of the data available on the WDS is in three folders on the EFT under:

• MAD_DLI_IDD_DAM/Root/Census_agri_recens
• MAD_DLI_IDD_DAM/Root/Census_pop_recens
• Mad_DLI_IDD_DAM/Root/Other_autres.

In decommissioning this server, no data will be lost, only the access to the server.

In many cases, more up-to-date aggregate data can be found on the Statistics Canada website; this is especially true for CANSIM tables which you can search for by using the old CANSIM table number on the site. There is a help video available for using the tables https://www.statcan.gc.ca/eng/sc/video/howto.

The Beyond 20/20 viewer software is also available for download on the StatCan website (https://www.statcan.gc.ca/eng/public/beyond20-20) as well as on the EFT site under MAD_DLI_IDD_DAM/Root/utilities_utilitaires. Many Census tables on the website are downloadable as IVT files for Beyond 20/20.

If you have difficulty finding the data either on the EFT or the website, we will be happy to assist.

Dataset of Protest Events

Question:

I am wondering if anyone in our community may have come across data pertaining to protest events in Canada.

I am helping a student who is interested in the following 
I am wondering is there a database for perhaps the last 5 years (2014-2019) or event further back (2009-2019) that records most if not all protest events that occurred in Canada with over 1000 people.

I have searched Odesi, FRDR, statcan, Google datasets... any other ideas out there?

Answer:

There are three sources I could find.  If these don’t pan out, then I think that in-depth research of news sources in English and French would be the way to go.

First, the 2019 federal report from Public Safety Canada, Evaluation of the Nation’s Capital Extraordinary Policing Costs Program https://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/rsrcs/pblctns/2019-vltn-xtrrdnry-plcng-csts/), gives yearly totals of demonstrations and federal labour disputes – see Table 2 - Events in the Nation’s Capital 2015-16 to 2018-19. Note also, Table 1 - Events covered by NCEPCP.

Here is a glossier version of the same report: https://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/rsrcs/pblctns/2019-vltn-xtrrdnry-plcng-csts/2019-vltn-xtrrdnry-plcng-csts-en.pdf

I recommend contacting the Ottawa Police Service for further details on the statistics in this report on these demonstrations / incidents, including table 2 https://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/rsrcs/lbrr/index-en.aspx. 

Various statements indicate that OPS does have more information.

1.        “this program did not use a data management system”

2.        “OPS has internal challenges with respect to data collection as it must be compiled manually, and the proposed IT solution has been delayed due to budget reductions. … “These inconsistencies have led to challenges in analyzing trends in the number and type of events.”

3.        “Currently, OPS submits a total of 4 reports each year (to PS, Public Safety Canada). Bi-annually OPS submits a non-financial activity report and a cashflow statement. … As well, OPS provides a breakdown of events attached as an annex to the non-financial activity report.”

4.         “At this time, the OPS does not provide information to Public Safety regarding incidents that occur during (national capital) events.”

Interesting report in terms of policing involved.

“In 2018, the total number of OPS employees was 1,380 sworn officers to perform policing duties, and 581 civilian members to support their efforts. From this, the OPS staffs a full time demonstration unit, which is deployed as required to address smaller federally-focused demonstrations.

For larger events, such as Canada Day or Remembrance Day, OPS utilizes additional officers beyond the demonstration unit to deploy adequate personnel.

…

Assignment of personnel for all National Capital events is based on the size and nature of the event, potential escalation to violent action by protestors and counter protestors and risk to the general public.

129 officers performed extraordinary policing duties for Remembrance Day 2016

673 officers performed extraordinary policing duties for Canada Day 2018”


2.  The Incident-based crime statistics, by detailed violations tables cover: Offences against public order (Part II Criminal Code).  This is an aggregate figure, maybe the researcher might want to frame their research question more broadly (this offence includes unlawful assemblies and riots (three or more persons disturbing / provoking disturbing of the peace), treason, fraudulent and forged identity documents, aircraft safety …). 

3. The Canadian Police College Library or the Public Safety Canada Library and Information Centre (PS Library). 

- They should have information on protests / policing around high stakes events (particularly “major international events” “Prime Minister-Led Summits of an International Nature”) as well as protests of multiple people or small (one person as in Fleming v. Ontario that went to the Supreme Court*)

- the 2004 book (Ipperwash inquiry) (p. 15) Willem De Lint and Jim Potts, Public order policing in Canada: an analysis of operations in recent high stakes events … examines six public order conflicts in chapter III. RECENT PROTEST EXPERIENCE IN CANADA. 

- Following the large-scale mobilized protests of the 1999 World Trade Organization Summit in Seattle and the 2000 annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Washington D.C., not to mention the rise in global terrorism in the wake of 9/11, security demands associated with hosting major international events (MIE) have increased substantially. https://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/rsrcs/pblctns/vltn-mjr-ntrntnl-vnt-scrt-cst-frmwrk-2017-18/index-en.aspx



Strange there seems to be so little official data on protests – lots of policing money involved. I hope these libraries has some sources that might pull the information together. With the 2019 Supreme Court Fleming v. Ontario decision clearly coming down on the side of the protester and his Charter rights versus the possibility of breaching the peace (and therefore the police’s powers of arrest), hopefully more data will be coming.  Various studies indicate a need for better prediction, planning training and decision-making around protests (actual or potential), e.g., Policing the right to protest: G20 systematic review report  https://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/lbrr/archives/cnmcs-plcng/cn30123-eng.pdf). 

LFS Variable Crosswalk

Question:

I have a researcher working with the Labour Force Survey across a long period (pretty well the entirety of it), who was asking about changes in 2016 to the education and NAICS variables. Specifically:

I was wondering if there is a crosswalk between educ90 (education variable for 1976-2016) and educ (education variable for 2017-2019). I am also wondering if there is a crosswalk between NAICS_18 (industry variable for 1976-2016) and NAICS_21 (industry variable for 2017-2019). Any help on this would be very appreciated, thank you!

Answer:

There is a Concordances between classifications page on the StatCan website - https://www.statcan.gc.ca/eng/concepts/concordances-classifications. It includes concordances for Industry (NAICS) and instructional programs (Classification of Instructional Programs Canada vs Major Field of Study; at the bottom of the page).

New Release: PCCF+ v7C November 2019

We are pleased to inform you that the following product is now available.

Postal Code Conversion File (PCCF) Plus version 7C November 2019

EFT: /MAD_PCCF_FCCP_DAM/Root/2016/pccf-fccp-plus/PCCF7C

Non-Profit Data

Question:
I have the following question from a faculty member.  I'm not sure where to find these.  Any suggestions would be appreciated. NFP= not for profit organizations. I presume that this doesn't include educational organizations, municipalities, etc.


% of workforce employed in NFPs, government % of NFP funding, % of GDP contributed by NFPs, % of Canadians donating to NFPs.


Thanks in advance.  I think I see some info on Stats can, but I'm not sure.

--

Answer:

We received the following information from our subject matter areas:

We were able to find the following table on the Statistics Canada website that shows employment for Canada by non-profit institutions.  

There is also a glossary of terms that provides more information about not for profit institutions as well as a publication.

The client can find most of the data he needs from the Satellite Account of Non-Profit Institutions and Volunteering (up to 2017).

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/190305/dq190305a-cansim-eng.htm

1. 1)      % of workforce employed in NFPs
• You can find the number of people employed in non-profits from tables;
• By sub-sector: 36-10-0617-01
• By type of activity: 36-10-0615-01
• These numbers should be compared to employment estimates from the National Accounts Labour Productivity program (available by province and for Canada): 36-10-0480-01
2. Government % of NFP funding
• You can find current transfers from government to non-profits in the income account: 36-10-0613-01
3. % of GDP contributed by NFPs
• You can find the GDP of the non-profit sector from tables;
• By sub-sector: 36-10-0616-01
• By type of activity: 36-10-0614-01
•  This should be compared to basic prices GDP from the National Accounts.  This data is available by province and for Canada: 36-10-0221-01
• Note: In order to get the GDP data from Market Prices to Basic Prices you will need to subtract “Taxes less subsidies on products and imports” from “GDP at market prices” in the table.
4. % of Canadians donating to NFPs
• Unfortunately, we don’t have data on the % of Canadian donating to Non-profits.  All we have is the amount of money actually being donated.  You can find this in the income account under “Current Transfers from Households: Donations”.  It is in table 36-10-0613-01

New files on Statistics Canada Nesstar

We are pleased to inform you that the following are now available on the Statistics Canada Nesstar WebView site.

• Canadian Travel Survey (CTS) 1980 Person Data PUMF (English only)
• Youth Smoking Survey (YSS) 2006-2007 PUMF (French only)
• Survey on Ageing and Independence (SAI) 1991 PUMF (French only)
• International Travel Survey (ITS) 2002 U.S. Resident Trips To Canada PUMF (English only)
• Labour Market Activity Survey (LMAS) 1986 Person File PUMF (English only)
• Labour Market Activity Survey (LMAS) 1987 Person File PUMF (English only)

Transgender and intersex people in Canada

Question:

I have a student looking for demographic information on transgender and intersex people in Canada.

Is there any survey/census/reliable estimate or other sources of information I can point them to?

There was a similar question asked here in 2015 and the answer was that there is no information collected by StatCan, but maybe something has changed since then.

Answer:

There is no data available on the Intersex population in Canada from Statistics Canada.

However, the Survey on Safety in Public and Private Spaces did publish an estimate of 0.24% for Transgender Population in Canada in December 2019.

Here is the link to their analytical document:

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/85-002-x/2019001/article/00017-eng.htm

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This isn’t the same concept that your researcher is looking for, but it may be helpful to bring up all the same.  (i.e., it won’t stand in as a proxy…)

The latest CCHS has Variable SDC_035, where R’s have the opportunity to state whether they consider themselves to be heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual. 

From the questionnaire:

SDC_Q035   Do you consider yourself to be...?


INTERVIEWER: Read categories to respondent.
1 Heterosexual (sexual relations with people of the opposite sex)
2 Homosexual, that is lesbian or gay (sexual relations with people of your own sex)
3 Bisexual (sexual relations with people of both sexes)
DK, RF


I don’t think this would hit the mark for your researcher as the Q specifically talks about “sexual relations” as opposed to gender and sexual fluidities and identities.  That said, I think this may be the one of the few times (or only time?) in recent memory that StatCan has posed a question on sex/gender and then released into a PUMF, perhaps partly because the concept can be difficult articulate into a categorical variable without misrepresenting R’s opinions on this very personal identity question..

New Release: LFS January 2020

We are pleased to inform you that the following product is now available.

Labour Force Survey (LFS) - January 2020

This public use microdata file contains non-aggregated data for a wide variety of variables collected from the Labour Force Survey (LFS). The LFS collects monthly information on the labour market activities of Canada's working age population. This product is for users who prefer to do their own analysis by focusing on specific subgroups in the population or by cross-classifying variables that are not in our catalogued products. The Labour Force Survey estimates are based on a sample, and are therefore subject to sampling variability. Estimates for smaller geographic areas, industries, occupations or cross tabulations will have more variability. For an explanation of sampling variability of estimates, and how to use standard errors to assess this variability, consult the Data Quality section in the Guide to the Labour Force Survey.

EFT: /MAD_PUMF_FMGD_DAM/Root/3701_LFS_EPA/1976-2020/data/micro2020-01.zip

Problem with Postal Code Conversion File+ 7B

Question:

A researcher here is working with PCCF+ 7B and has encountered a problem, and wondered if someone at StatCan could assist?

Text below forwarded from the researcher:

The main problem I am facing is the DB-level GAF linking, but I also found two other issues that could be affecting the linking as a whole.

I am working on a project where we are trying to use postal codes reported in a survey to identify rural/urban status (planning to use the CSize variable). There was an option to provide full postal code, or to provide only the first three digits if the respondent would prefer. The records with full postal code seem to be linking properly, but any record with only FSA appears in the problem file with most of the variables set to missing. When I went through the code closely I noticed that when the records are linked to the Geographic Attribute File (GAF) it requires records to have a dissemination block. The comment in the code above this merge says “Merge back with Geographic Attribute File to get the remainder of the codes - Start at the Dissemination Block level, then move up to the DA, CSD, etc...”, but then the files are only linked at the DB level and any record without DB is not merged. From what I understand, dissemination block cannot be assigned to records linked on less than 4 characters so our records with only FSA do not get merged to the GAF and therefore have all the GAF variables set to missing later in the cleaning up stage of the files. When I looked at the datasets right before this merge, all the records are assigned a CMA from the linking based on FSA but this variable gets dropped before merging to the GAF. I know that the GAF is a DB level file but from my understanding there are variables at higher levels, such as CMA (and therefore CSize), that could be assigned for records without DB. Would it be valid to use the CMA variable assigned in the earlier linking to merge to the GAF for variables at the CMA level?

I also found that in the wc6dups file, the SAC id variable is only one digit instead of three. The input dataset only has one digit where SAC should be, and there is a comment beside this dataset in the input file SAS code saying “Check the input file”. This doesn’t actually make a difference in the files right now because this variable is overwritten by the GAF SAC variable, but I’m not sure if it will have an impact if the files are merged using SAC/CMA. Another thing I noticed is that DMT is used frequently through the code to assign missing values to records with specific DMTs, but DMT is set to 9 after the 6 character linking, and doesn’t exist in any of the datasets used later in the linking, so any records not linked using 6 characters has a DMT=9. I’m not sure the impact that this has on the validity of the linking, but I don’t think this is what was intended.

Answer:

In developing more recent versions of the PCCF+, we have removed most of the geographic links at the 3-digit FSA level, because we consider these to be largely inaccurate in most cases – this is why your client has most of these as missing. This happens during the cleaning phase. In general, we do not recommend off-label uses of the PCCF+, such as pulling out preliminary datasets to be used in geocoding.

In regards to specific questions:

but I’m not sure if it will have an impact if the files are merged using SAC/CMA.

They are not merged  using these variables.

Another thing I noticed is that DMT is used frequently through the code to assign missing values to records with specific DMTs, but DMT is set to 9 after the 6 character linking, and doesn’t exist in any of the datasets used later in the linking, so any records not linked using 6 characters has a DMT=9. I’m not sure the impact that this has on the validity of the linking, but I don’t think this is what was intended.

We cannot assign DMT to partial postal codes – they only exist for full postal codes. We perform different geocoding processes using DMT as an indicator of positional accuracy.

PSIS

Question:

I'm working with a student who wishes to use the microdata of Postsecondary Student Information System (PSIS). The application process to get access to the data at RDC however, is a bit too long given their situation (his thesis is due to in less than 2 months); if they could use PUMFs for this survey that would be ideal, but I didn't find it on Nesstar.  Did I miss anything and is there any other way for him to get his hands on the PSIS microdata?

Answer:

You may find the following table created by my colleagues helpful. It outlines which surveys have public use files, if there is a confidential file in the RDCs and if the file is available through the real time remote access (RTRA) program.

https://uottawa.libguides.com/c.php?g=401920&p=3205624

As you can see, there isn’t a PUMF for the PSIS. Likely your students best option would be a custom tabulation, but those are cost recoverable. 

New files on Statistics Canada Nesstar

We are pleased to inform you that the following are now available on the Statistics Canada Nesstar WebView site.

• Youth Smoking Survey (YSS) 2004-2005 PUMF
• Youth Smoking Survey (YSS) 2006 PUMF (English only)

New Release: NTS 2018

We are pleased to inform you that the following product is now available.

National Travel Survey (NTS) 2018

The National Travel Survey was developed to fully replace the Travel Survey of Residents of Canada (record number 3810) and replace the Canadian resident component of the International Travel Survey (record number 3152). The National Travel Survey collects information about the domestic and international travel of Canadian residents.

The National Travel Survey, sponsored by Statistics Canada, aims to measure the characteristics and the economic impact of the tourism activities of Canadian residents. The objectives of the survey are to provide information about the number of trips and expenditures by Canadian residents by trip origin, destination, duration, type of accommodation used, trip reason, mode of travel, etc.; to provide information on travel incidence and to provide the socio-demographic profile of travellers and non-travellers. From a macroeconomic point of view, the NTS measures the domestic and international tourism demand by Canadian residents.

EFT:  /MAD_PUMF_FMGD_DAM/Root/5232_NTS-ENV/2018

New Release: ITS 2017

We are pleased to inform you that the following product is now available.

International Travel Survey (ITS) 2017

The electronic questionnaires (e-questionnaires) and Air Exit Survey (AES) are components of the International Travel Survey (ITS) together with the Frontier Counts (record number 5005). It is an ongoing survey conducted by Statistics Canada since 1972 to meet the requirements of the Balance of Payments (BOP) of the Canadian System of National Accounts. The survey provides a full range of statistics on international travellers (visitors to Canada and Canadian residents returning to Canada), including detailed characteristics of their trips such as expenditures, activities, places visited and length of stay.

In addition to fulfilling BOP requirements, the information collected in the questionnaires is used by the Tourism Satellite Account (TSA), Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), Destination Canada, provincial tourism agencies, the United States Department of Commerce, the OECD, banks, investment companies, other private sector industries and independent researchers. The information is also used for reporting to international organizations such as the World Tourism Organization (WTO), the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the Pacific-Asia Travel Association (PATA).

The AES started in the year 2000 for overseas visitors and in the year 2011 for U.S. visitors. The primary objective of the AES is to improve the quality and reliability of trip and traveller estimates for foreign air travellers to Canada, from major and emerging markets.

The e-questionnaire component of the survey began in 2013, with the distribution of invitation cards to travellers (Canadian, American, and Overseas) who have entered at one of 137 designated Canadian ports of entry. The mail-back questionnaires were last used in 2014.

EFT:  /MAD_PUMF_FMGD_DAM/Root/3152_ITS_EVI/2017/ 

CCHS variable CCS_185

Question:

I have a researcher working with multiple years of the CCHS (2007-2008 to 2015-2016) and a question has arisen - please see his message below:

In the CCHS documentation item CCS_185 (last time to have colonoscopy or sigmoidoscopy); the response options include both a time range of "5 TO < 10YEARS" and another time range of "5 YEARS OR MORE". These options should not be mutually exclusive (although they are presented in the dataset as such). Do you have any explanation for this? 

The researcher has indicated that it is represented this way in the data itself as well and is present across all the years. My initial thoughts are that there is a typo and that the second option should perhaps be "10 years or more", as otherwise these two response options overlap each other.

Can you please advise?

Answer:

There are a couple previously identified format/label issues with CCS for multiple CCHS cycles, including the format for CCS_185. The error for CCS_185 is a label error and CCS_185=6 should be ‘10 years or more’ (errata item 19). I would encourage the researcher to consult the errata found in the documentation folders (two separate CCHS annual component Errata documents; one for the 2000 to 2014 reference period, and another for 2015 and later) , this document contains information for all known errors as well as information on correcting known errors.

This may have previously been mentioned to the researcher, but the CCHS annual component was redesigned for the 2015 reference period and onward cycles. 
As a result of the 2015 CCHS redesign, combining or comparing cycles of CCHS data from before and after the redesign (e.g., combining/comparing 2014 (and earlier files) with 2015 annual files) is not recommended, and caution should be taken when comparing estimates across those years. Even estimates derived from content that has remained unchanged, are subject to the potential impacts of the other major changes to the survey (i.e. new survey frames and collection methods) and may not necessarily be comparable with past cycles. It would be very difficult to ascertain whether any changes or consistencies between estimates pre and post redesign are a reflection of the true population characteristic being examined, or the effect of the significant methodological and operational changes made to the survey. Please review the 2015 CCHS Redesign Summary found with the 2015 and also with 2016 survey documentation.

Request for Tools to Turn Tables in PDFs into Spreadsheets

Question:

Hi DLI Community,

Can anyone recommend a good tool for using OCR to turn pdfs of scanned tables into spreadsheets? A professor here at the University of Toronto is working with 200+ tables from nineteenth-century Ontario government publications, and I’m trying to suggest tools and a workflow for him and his RA.

Example of scanned document: https://archive.org/details/reportofcommissi187986ontauoft/page/n31/mode/2up

So far, my proposed workflow is for them to clean pdfs (if necessary) using Acrobat Pro, and then scan them using https://www.onlineocr.net/ (which is free and fairly good) or else something more powerful like OmniPage Ultimate (slow but useful proprietary OCR software, which we have on some library workstations) for particularly challenging tables. Finally, the tables can be manually corrected.

Do any of you have suggestions for OCR tools that worked for you, especially if they work in-browser and can create spreadsheets?

Answer:

You may want to have a look at Tabula (https://tabula.technology/). I have not used it extensively myself, but I remember that it was recommend by Vince Gray (of DLI fame), so it must be good!

--

I often use Camelot or it’s web version Excalibur but the document must be in a text-based PDF format. I don’t know a decent tool to convert image-based PDF to text-based PDF.

Variable issues with GSS Cycle 30

Question:

A researcher reports something strange with two variables from the 2016 iteration (Cycle 30- Canadians at Work and Home) of the GSS.

Both variables AGEFHSHG (Age of respondent’s father in household) and AGEMHSDG (Age of respondent’s mother in household) show answer categories that are very perplexing if you consider that these are supposed to be PARENTS:

0 to 9 years and
10 to 19 years

Granted, there are young parents that would be in the second category, but the first one does not make sense at all and I wonder if the second one is meant to start as early as 10 years old. And there are actually answers within the 0 to 9 years old category! This must be a mistake or there is something really strange about how these derived variables are obtained.

Answer:

Thank you for bringing this discrepancy to our attention. After some investigation, we discovered the following two issues: 

1.       There was 1 case where all foster children were inadvertently coded as foster parents. This has been recoded.

2.       Labels in the PUMF were incorrectly applied for “Age of respondent’s mother in the household” and “Age of respondent’s father in the household”.

The way it appeared in PUMF--incorrect
Age of respondent’s mother in household

0 to 9 years
10 to 19 years
20 to 29 years
30 to 39 years
40 to 49 years
50 years and over

Valid skip


To rerun the data yourself, please use the following coding:

 AGEMHSDG in groupings of 10 years */

/* Age group of respondent’s mother in household */

/****************************************************************************************/

/* Values for : */

/* 1 : Less than 40 */

/* 2 : 40 - 49 */

/* 3 : 50 - 59 */

/* 4 : 60 - 69 */

/* 5 : 70 - 79 */

/* 6 : 80 years and over */

/* 96 : VALID SKIP No Mother in household */

/* 97 : DON'T KNOW */

/* 98 : REFUSAL */

/* 99 : NOT STATED */

Our Processing Team is making all appropriate corrections and is rerunning the data. The data dictionary will be reissued in the near future.

.....

...the changes apply to both the mother and father variables.


Once we do the corrections on our end, the folks at Odesi will be able to take the data to restage for their purposes.

New files on Statistics Canada Nesstar

We are pleased to inform you that the following are now available on the Statistics Canada Nesstar WebView site.

·         Retirement Survey (RS) 1975 Pre-Retirement PUMF (English only)

·         Retirement Survey (RS) 1975 Retirement PUMF (English only)

·         Labour Market Activity Survey (LMAS) 1986 Job File PUMF (English only)

·         Labour Market Activity Survey (LMAS) 1987 Job File PUMF (English only)

·         Canadian Travel Survey (CTS) 1980 Person Trip Data PUMF (English only)

·         Family History Survey (FHS) 1984 PUMF (English only)

Should you have any questions or comments, feel free to contact us.

New Release: National Graduates Survey 2018

National Graduates Survey (NGS) 2018

Data from this survey will be used to better understand the experiences and outcomes of graduates, and to improve government programs. The survey is designed to collect details on topics such as: i) the extent to which graduates of postsecondary programs have been successful in obtaining employment since graduation; ii) the relationship between the graduates' program of study and the employment subsequently obtained; iii) the type of employment obtained and qualification requirements; iv) sources of funding for postsecondary education; and v) government-sponsored student loans and other sources of student debt.

This information will be used by Statistics Canada, Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC), provincial and territorial ministries of education, researchers and other interested organizations to examine various aspects such as educational pathways, postsecondary funding, mobility, school-to-work transitions, labour market outcomes and pursuit of further postsecondary studies.

EFT: /MAD_PUMF_FMGD_DAM/Root/5012_NGS_END/2018

New Release: LFS December 2019

Labour Force Survey (LFS) - December 2019

This public use microdata file contains non-aggregated data for a wide variety of variables collected from the Labour Force Survey (LFS). The LFS collects monthly information on the labour market activities of Canada's working age population. This product is for users who prefer to do their own analysis by focusing on specific subgroups in the population or by cross-classifying variables that are not in our catalogued products. The Labour Force Survey estimates are based on a sample, and are therefore subject to sampling variability. Estimates for smaller geographic areas, industries, occupations or cross tabulations will have more variability. For an explanation of sampling variability of estimates, and how to use standard errors to assess this variability, consult the Data Quality section in the Guide to the Labour Force Survey.

EFT: /MAD_PUMF_FMGD_DAM/Root/3701_LFS_EPA/1976-2019/data/micro2019-12.zip