Healthy City Dashboard updates allow for deeper look at disaggregated and neighbourhood-level data

We've enhanced the Healthy City Dashboard, which monitors Vancouver’s work to build equitable communities, to offer users more detailed information by providing disaggregated data. This enhancement will help us and local service providers better meet the diverse needs of communities in Vancouver.

Disaggregated data is data that has been further separated into segments or categories. For example, users can now view data in the Healthy City Dashboard on how many people live in income poverty, separated into categories like racial identity, age, or immigration status. This shows how systems like racism and ageism interact with other factors that influence our health and well-being and lead to different outcomes for individuals and communities.

Providing neighbourhood-level data helps users and service providers to better understand the inequities in the social and economic factors that influence well-being in specific neighbourhoods, and supports the efforts of local communities to build community health equity in communities across the city. 

Using data for equity

Vancouver’s Equity Framework PDF file (553 KB) defines equity as both a process and outcome. The Healthy City Dashboard is an important tool for measuring equity as an outcome, but ongoing work is needed to ground this data in the experiences and aspirations of communities in the city. As a City of Reconciliation, we are particularly committed to forming respectful relationships with Indigenous communities that acknowledges and supports their agency over data and policy.

We've begun preliminary work with Indigenous communities to identify indicators and will continue to work with communities to centre Indigenous perspectives and rights in the Healthy City Strategy. Over time, our goal is to continue to grow the Healthy City Dashboard to encompass a diverse set of data and indicators that reflect the experiences and needs of communities across the city.

How service providers can use the data

Examples of how service providers and non-profit organizations can use disaggregated data from the Healthy City Dashboard include:

• Integrate data into organizational research reports, funding applications, or advocacy for change.
• Measure how people in different groups experience health and well-being, and identify the interaction between systems that create inequities.
• Tailor programming to meet the needs of a specific group of people.

About the Healthy City Dashboard

The Healthy City Dashboard is a project created through participation in the Partnership for Healthy Cities External website, opens in new tab, a global network of cities whose leaders have committed to prevent non-communicable diseases and injuries, with support from Bloomberg Philanthropies, the World Health Organization, and Vital Strategies. The dashboard is a data tool to help meet the goals of the Healthy City Strategy, which calls on people in Vancouver to work together toward a healthy, equitable, and sustainable city for all.

The dashboard tracks progress against 23 key indicators that act as determinants of health and wellbeing of residents and communities as a whole, and will continue to be updated as new data and indicators become available.

Explore the Healthy City Dashboard

Quotes

Mayor Kennedy Stewart

“The City of Vancouver continues to be a part of forward-thinking municipalities that use innovative approaches to better understand the challenges our communities and residents face,” said Mayor Kennedy Stewart. “This new addition to the Healthy City Dashboard helps separate data into segments so we can truly understand how systems like racism and ageism may influence our residents’ health and well-being. I look forward to tracking our progress on the 23 key indicators as we work towards a healthier, more equitable and sustainable Vancouver for all.”

Director of the Partnership for Healthy Cities Ariella Rojhani

“At a time when disparities in health are clearer than ever, we applaud the City of Vancouver for making available disaggregated data that can be used to foster greater equity in health, as well as improve other socioeconomic factors that contribute to healthy environments,” said Ariella Rojhani, Director of the Partnership for Healthy Cities. “This is a perfect example of how cities in our global network are making big, systemic changes to improve the health and safety of urban residents around the world.”