Helping communities, service providers and policy makers identify issues related to health equity and respond to gaps in services.
A strong health and social service system matches community resources to community needs. The Ontario Community Health Profiles Partnership (OCHPP) makes high-quality, area-specific, health-related data available to everyone. We do this through our open-access website and free health maps as well as partnerships with health-care and social-service organizations.
Findings from the numerous and interactive maps and data tables available on the website can be used to help address areas in Ontario with highest needs, to identify gaps and hot spots and to provide data over time to see where improvements have been made and where more work is needed.
Open-access website
The free data, maps and tables at www.OntarioHealthProfiles.ca can help you explore and compare different communities’:
- Health issues such as chronic disease (e.g. diabetes, high blood pressure), injuries, premature mortality, addictions and cancer
- Use of health-care services such as cancer screening, primary care, community health centres, hospitals, emergency departments and palliative care
- Demographic makeup such as language, immigration status, income level, sex and age
- Locations and densities of health-related resources such as grocery stores, schools and parks
Partnerships
Through regularly-updated, custom datasets, our expert spatial analysts and other highly-specialized team members help partners and new clients conduct research, set goals, measure progress and better understand and predict trends in their catchment areas. For example, our analysts can:
- Capture and layer sociodemographic factors and patterns such as the movement of people or rates of disease stratified by income, gender and age
- Identify areas where the distribution of services may not match needs or indicators of geographic accessibility
- Calculate distances and travel times, for example from patients and populations to services
- Contextualize your data, creating opportunities for new insights or avenues of exploration
Our long-term partners and current clients include health-care planners, hospital administrators, health agencies and researchers.
Our data
We have outstanding partnerships and a staff of expert analysts. Most of our health data comes from population-based health datasets, de-identified patient records, and clinical and administrative databases housed at ICES (an independent, not-for-profit research institute funded by the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care). Other data partners include Toronto Public Health, community health providers and independent researchers.
Contact
To learn more about OCHPP and becoming a client or partner, please contact Anne-Marie Tynan at Anne-Marie.Tynan@unityhealth.to.
