Census tracts have surveys such as the American community survey, decennial census, economic surveys, population estimates, public sector census, and economic censuses that can be leveraged to assess the overall impact of socioeconomic parameters on the health and wellbeing of patients in a given healthcare system at a given geographical location. Census tract information is gathered by assigning each person, household, housing unit, institution, farm, business establishment, or other responding entity to a specific location, and then assigning that location to a zip code tabulation area appropriate to the census or sample survey by way of geocoding [8,9].
Census tract information has been used to develop indices that directly explain the SDOH of people by using their zip code location to develop the area deprivation index, social vulnerability index, and modified retail food index [10,11,12,13]
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9599320/.
Province/Territory: “Portion of Canada’s land area governed by a political authority. Canada is divided into 10 provinces and 3 territories.”
Census Metro Areas (CMA): “Area consisting of one of more neighbouring municipalities situated around a core. A census metropolitan area must have a total population of at least 100,000 of which 50,000 or more live in the core.” There are 33 CMAs in Canada as of the 2011 census.
Census Division (CD): “Group of neighbouring municipalities joined together for the purposes of regional planning and managing common services (such as police or ambulance services).” In Toronto, the amalgamated City of Toronto corresponds to the Census Division unit.
Census Subdivision (CSD): “Area that is a municipality or an area that is deemed to be equivalent to a municipality for statistical reporting purposes (e.g. as an Indian reserve or an unorganized territory). Municipal status is defined by laws in effect in each province and territory in Canada.” The Toronto CSD is the same as the CD (see above), because of amalgamation. Census Tract (CT): “Area that is small and relatively stable. Census tracts usually have a population of 2,500 to 8,000 persons. They are located in large urban centres that must have an urban core population of 50,000 or more.”
Dissemination Area (DA): “Small area composed of one or more neighbouring dissemination blocks, with a population of 400 to 700 persons. All of Canada is divided into dissemination areas. It is the smallest standard geographic areas for which all census data are disseminated”.
Canada Postal Code: “The postal code is a six-character code defined and maintained by Canada Post Corporation for the purpose of sorting and delivering mail.”
[https://mdl.library.utoronto.ca/canadian-census-geography-unit-definitions]
Canadian Levels of Geography 🇨🇦 Census Division (Canada): Correspond to regional municipalities, counties, districts, regions (e.g., Waterloo Region).
Census Subdivisions (CSD): Roughly correspond to cities, townships, towns, villages, or municipalities in Canada (e.g., the City of Waterloo, Town of Elmira).
Census Metropolitan Area (CMA): An area that has 1+ municipalities, equalling a population of at least 100,000, situated around a core area that has at least 50,000 people living there.
Forward Sortation Area (FSA): A level of geography that represents a group of postal code areas that start with the same three characters, e.g “M4B”. In your account, the main application of this will be for looking at your client data.
Census Tract (CT): Generally, these have a population of fewer than 10,000 persons and are located in CMAs.
Dissemination Areas (DA): The smallest sizes of geography that the government releases to the public. The average DA/Block Group is typically made up of around 500 households.
Dissemination Block (DB): The smallest geographical unit in Canada is the Dissemination Block (DB), or the Census Block in the USA. For these areas, only population and household counts are reported. A collection of DBs makes up a DA.