Evaluation of the utility of national information sources for developing a baseline data set on the health of rural canadians - Stage II

New evidence has shown that rural Canadians have lower life expectancies [LE] and lower disability free life expectancies (DFLE) than urban Canadians. While this observation was most acute in aboriginal populations and the most northern regions, statistically significant differences were also observed for the other four predominantly rural peer groups. These latest data underscores the need to understand the significant health challenges facing rural and remote Canadians that are not encountered by urban populations. The goals of this proposed initiative are to: 1) Conduct an analysis of the potential contributions of the Canadian Community Health Survey files to understanding 'rural health' and add these findings to our Year 1 inventory of national health datasets; 2) Examine and evaluate data on health resources availability by geography and health services utilization data to be obtained from CIHI and the General Social Survey; 3) Assess the Canadian Labour Force Survey and other sources, regarding what these datasets might contribute to understanding of rural resource reliance, rural employment, including job hazards, rural environments and associated mortality; 4) Continue formal discussions with rural researchers and rural Canadians about the valid application and interpretation of other data and constructs from their respective disciplines and community views towards understanding rural determinants of health. Because of the complexity of access and data linkages of this emerging collection of data resources on rural health, we propose to build a data warehouse to provide more seamless access by our research team to these resources. Our results will be presented to the National Forum on Rural Health in November 2003 and as a final report.