Health Reports, March 2014

Released: 2014-03-19

The March 2014 online issue of Health Reports, released today, contains two articles.

The first article, "Estimating the prevalence of COPD in Canada: Reported diagnosis versus measured airflow obstruction," compares prevalence estimates of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) based on self-reports with those based on lung function measurements from cycle 1 of Statistics Canada's Canadian Health Measures Survey. This is the first time that lung function measurements have been reported for a nationally representative population in Canada.

For more information on this article, contact Jessica Evans (438-401-0091; jessica.evans@mail.mcgill.ca), McGill University.

The second article is "Mortality from diabetes mellitus, 2004 to 2008: A multiple-cause-of-death analysis." Cause-of-death data are typically based on the underlying cause, not on other causes that contributed to the death. However, single-cause mortality statistics may obscure the contribution of chronic conditions like diabetes mellitus, which is rarely an underlying cause of death. Recently, Statistics Canada created a dataset that electronically captures underlying and contributing causes recorded on death certificates. Using the Multiple Cause of Death file, this study presents a more complete picture of diabetes mellitus as a cause of death from 2004 to 2008.

For more information on this article, contact Jungwee Park (613-951-4598; jungwee.park@statcan.gc.ca), Health Analysis Division, Statistics Canada.

The March 2014 online issue of Health Reports, Vol. 25, no. 3 (Catalogue number82-003-X), is now available from the Browse by key resource module of our website under Publications.

Contact information

For more information, contact us (toll-free 1-800-263-1136; 514-283-8300; infostats@statcan.gc.ca).

For information about Health Reports, contact Janice Felman (613-951-6446; janice.felman@statcan.gc.ca), Health Analysis Division.