The National Institute of Public Health of Quebec (INSPQ) put online this Tuesday a new tool allowing to explore, in the form of graphs, different indicators of public health in Quebec.
What indicators can we find?
This tool currently includes 19 indicators. For example, we find the number of deaths from road accidents or cancer, but also indicators on mental health, or the number of single-parent families in Quebec.
Everything is presented in the form of graphs allowing you to visualize the data according to gender or age, and to compare different regions of Quebec, Canadian provinces or countries, when the figures are available.
“It’s an achievement that is not very common in the world, to offer such a vast and popularized tool,” emphasizes Marie-Hélène Lussier, coordinator of the web dissemination of data on the health status of the INSPQ.
Who is this new tool for?
This data could be used by researchers or doctors, but is also made available to the media and the general public.
“I’m a data geek myself, so all this interests me enormously,” says Marie-Hélène Lussier. “If the population asks itself, for example, ‘How many people die of cancer each year in Quebec?’, this is information that is easily accessible and that we hope is digestible enough for people who can ask themselves these questions.”
Some salient figures
Among the figures presented, we can observe for example that life expectancy in the province is 83.2 years; with British Columbia, Quebec stands out as having the highest life expectancy in North America.
The prevalence of diabetes in people aged 1 year and older has remained stable in recent years, when adjusting for changes in age groups.
And the drowning mortality rate is higher among seniors than among young children (1.6 per 100,000 for those aged 65 and over, compared to 1.3 per 100,000 for those aged 0-4).
Some precautions
Marie-Hélène Lussier, however, warns the public against the risk of errors in the interpretation and understanding of data when using such a tool.
We are used to disseminating information that requires a certain level of statistical skills. It is certainly aimed more at an informed audience.
Marie-Hélène Lussier, coordinator of the web dissemination of health status data from the INSPQ
Misinterpretations of the data could potentially lead to misinformation that could circulate on social media. “But our communications teams are very alert,” she adds. “We will jump on the information to correct the situation, if necessary.”
Information is available on the INSPQ website on how to properly interpret the data.
Consult the INSPQ public health indicator