CIHI annual report - applying the equity lens

The Canadian Institutes of Health information are charged with reporting out on the health and wellbeing of Canadians.  Given the imminent death of the Health Council of Canada, CIHI will become the de factor form of accountability in the country, in a reality already are.  Of course, MacLeans does a better job of public communication, but dig into CIHI website for more data than you could possible internalize. 

The 2013 health report takes another step, and a cautious step towards reporting on population health in addition to facility performance. Credit to the CIHI team for recognizing and reporting on the continuum from health status, non-medical determinants of health, health system performance and the community context of the other three areas.  That CIHI correctly refers to the non-medical determinants is an added bonus and something readers should explore further DRPHealth Sept 16, 2011. However, they slide back into using the social determinants of health in the report body. 

The 2013 report looks heavily at socioeconomic status by neighbourhood in reporting health status. Not surprising, gradients are readily distinguishable in most of the measures reported on.

Appended are the details of certain health status information by health region or province – sometimes broken down by Aboriginal status, neighbourhood income quintile.

All in all, its 115 pages of data dense material which takes time to review the nuances.  But, just as a previous report emphasized preventable mortality and morbidity, this report lightly carries a subtheme that it disparity contributes across the continuum of the health realm, hopefully with the vision of moving towards equity.