Since the mid 1990's members of the Toronto Community Health Profiles Partnership have been providing community-level demographic,
socioeconomic, and population health information to community organizations and health and social services providers throughout Toronto.
This vital information was not readily available to all service providers, particularly community-based programs that found themselves serving
some of the city's most vulnerable populations with little information about those populations. As a group of epidemiologists, medical
geographers and academic health researchers, the partnership members had access to this important data, and had the expertise to produce
and provide the key health indicator statistics and maps using consistent data standards, methods and definitions. An important knowledge
gap was being filled, however we were not reaching all community-based service providers, planners, and policy-makers.

In 2005 the Toronto Community Health Profiles Partnership launched this website with the purpose of making detailed, area-level health data
available to everyone. We provide health profiles of Toronto communities for Toronto communities, with relevant and timely information.

Data-sharing partners include government, public health professionals, community health providers and researchers.

This site complements other health information sites (Health Quality Ontario, Statistics Canada Health Indicators, Canadian Institute for Health
Information (CIHI), Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences, Toronto Public Health) and neighbourhood data (City of Toronto) sites with small
area community health data not otherwise available.
In order to reduce duplication, users are referred to the City of Toronto Neighbourhood Profiles for neighbourhood level maps and detailed
socio-demographic indicators and to Wellbeing Toronto for other neighbourhood indicators.

Our overall goal is to support action to reduce health inequities in Toronto, and ultimately Ontario (through inclusion of selected indicators for
other Ontario communities).

 •  To build community capacity to use health information;

 •  To build deeper understanding of Toronto neighbourhoods in order to appreciate the health needs of communities;

 •  To foster academic-hospital-community collaborations to improve population health;

 •  To demonstrate health inequities in order to address them.

 •  Provide health profiles of Toronto communities for Toronto communities with relevant and timely information in a user-friendly format;

 •  Provide technical support and mechanisms for communities to access data;

 •  Conduct a series of workshops to foster access to and use of health data for decision-making, advocacy and policy,
     and to stimulate collaboration.

 •  Access Alliance - Multicultural Health and Community Services

 •  Central LHIN

 •  Centre for Urban Health Solutions at St. Michael's (C-UHS)

 •  Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES)

 •  South East Toronto Organization (SETo)

 •  Toronto Central LHIN

 •  Toronto Public Health

 •  Wellbeing Toronto

 •  Wellesley Institute

 •  Dianne Patychuk of Steps to Equity

 •  Toronto District Health Council (TDHC)

The TCHPP team would like to acknowledge the following former partners and staff members for their outstanding contributions to this project:

 •  Agha, Golerah
 •  Creatore, Marisa
 •  Patychuk, Dianne
 •  Weyman, Tosh

We provide health and health-related indicators in three basic forms:

Community-level health indicators - this micro-data provides detailed statistics about populations living in communities by sex and relevant
age-groups for each health indicator. We also provide information about how the community compares with the overall city values and
whether this difference is meaningful. These data are available in table format.

Toronto or Ontario-wide health indicators - this macro-data provides an overview of how different communities within Toronto or Ontario
compare with each other with respect to specific health indicators. These data are shown on maps with different colours representing
different values across communities.

Equity analyses - graphs are used to show how values of indicators compare across income and immigration quintiles. These analyses do not
have a geographic component and are not community-based. These analyses focus on specific population sub-groups based on immigration
status and area-level income.

The site also includes links to other sources and resources for geographic and non-geographic community health equity research and
planning (e.g. health information about people who are homeless, ethno-specific health research, refugee and uninsured populations, LGBT
communities, people with disabilities, etc.) not captured in administrative data sources that can be used to produce health indicators at the
neighbourhood or community level.