MANITOBA CHILD HEALTH ATLAS 2004
kids photo (120x80 px)
 

METHODS

Population Studied

The population studied in this report included all children from birth to 19 years of age, excluding:

  1. Children whose postal codes were the same as the Public Trustee offices. Because this would be a mailing address only, we could not determine where in the province these children lived.
  2. Children who did not have Manitoba postal or municipal codes. These children were considered non-Manitoba residents.
In addition to these exclusions, children whose postal codes were the same as the Winnipeg Child and Family Services office were excluded from regional analyses because we could not determine where these children actually lived. These children were not excluded from the Manitoba totals, however.

For some indicators, 5 years of data (1997/98 to 2001/02) were analyzed; for others 1 year of data was used (2001/02). Population counts for the denominators were generally given as of December 31 of the year(s) used in the analysis. The denominators came from the Research Registry in the Manitoba Population Health Research Data Repository, which is described on the Data Sources page.

Demographic information describing the Manitoba child population used in this study include:

  • Tables showing child population numbers by age for Winnipeg and non-Winnipeg, and numbers and percentages of children by age groups and sex for the Winnipeg Neighourhood Clusters and the RHA Districts.
  • Tables describing various socioeconomic characteristics of the regions where the children live. These socioeconomic characteristics are the variables used in the creation of socioeconmic groups used in the graphs (see Data Display below).
  • Graphs showing the average number of children per family for Winnipeg and non-Winnipeg by SES Group.

Analyses

Details of specific variables and methods used for this report are available under relevant entries in the Glossary.

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Data Display

Most of the child outcomes displayed in this report are given as rates per 1000, and shown across area of residence and socioeconomic status. Where data permit, rates are given by 46 Regional Health Authority (RHA) Districts for non-Winnipeg children, and by 25 Winnipeg Neighbourhood Clusters for Winnipeg children. Where numbers are too small (and therefore rates unstable) to permit display by these regions, rates are given by 10 RHAs and 12 Winnipeg Community Areas. These areas indicate the place of residence of the child, rather than where the child received health or social services, or where the child went to school.

Regions of residence are ordered consistently throughout the report. Ordering is based on an index of socioeconomic status, with those areas with high socioeconomic status shown at the top of the graphs, and those areas with low socioeconomic status shown at the bottom of the graphs. Note that all RHA District graphs are first grouped by RHA and then ordered by socioeconomic status.

The socioeconomic index used by MCHP is known as the SocioEconomic Factor Index (SEFI) and combines those socioeconomic characteristics most strongly related to health outcomes into a single score (for a more detailed description, see the Martens, Frohlich, Carriere, Derksen and Brownell article "Embedding Child Health Within a Framework of Regional Health [p. S15-20] in the Canadian Journal of Public Health, Supplement 2, 2002). These characteristics include unemployment, high school completion, lone parent households, and female workforce participation. We calculated SEFI scores for the 1146 dissemination areas (DAs) within Winnipeg and for the 1172 DAs outside of Winnipeg, using publicly available data from the 2001 Census. We then calculated a SEFI score for each of the 25 Winnipeg Neighbourhood Clusters using a weighted average of the scores for each DA in that neighbourhood. Likewise, a SEFI score was calculated for each RHA District using a weighted average of the scores for each DA in that district. For ease of presentation, for both Winnipeg and non-Winnipeg areas, we divided the neighbourhoods or districts into four groups based on how different they were from the average score for all neighbourhoods or districts. Thus for both Winnipeg and non-Winnipeg areas we end up with four SEFI Groups: Low SES (or most disadvantaged), Low-Mid SES, Middle SES, and High SES.

As shown in the Winnipeg map, the more disadvantaged areas (Low SES areas shown in red on the map) tend to be found in the central part of Winnipeg, with the most advantaged areas (High SES areas in dark green on the map) on the outskirts of the city. The Non-Winnipeg map (RHA Districts) shows where each of these four groups are located in non-Winnipeg areas of the province. It is clear that the more disadvantaged (red) areas tend to be in the northern parts of the province, with the more advantaged areas in the south central parts of Manitoba. It should be noted that the total number of people and the total number of children residing in these SES groups is not equal: The Middle SES category in Winnipeg has almost half of Winnipeg’s total population; and the Middle SES category has just over half of the non-Winnipeg population. Socioeconomic characteristics for each neighbourhood area of Winnipeg and for each non-Winnipeg RHA district can be found in the tables above.

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Key Findings:
Education

Education summary report

Winnipeg
right arrow Report
(20-page pdf)
right arrow Figures from Report *
right arrow Summary

Non-Winnipeg
right arrow Rural and Northern Health Care Meeting Presentation *
 
* PowerPoint file can be downloaded for notes.

© 2004 University of Manitoba


Last modified on Tuesday, 05-Jul-2005 22:37:00 CDT