^a Population aged 12 and over who reported perceiving their own health status as being either excellent or very good or fair or poor, depending on the indicator. Perceived health refers to the perception of a person's health in general, either by the person himself or herself, or, in the case of proxy response, by the person responding. Health means not only the absence of disease or injury but also physical, mental and social well being.

^b Population aged 12 and over who reported perceiving their own mental health status as being excellent or very good or fair or poor, depending on the indicator. Perceived mental health refers to the perception of a person's mental health in general. Perceived mental health provides a general indication of the population suffering from some form of mental disorder, mental or emotional problems, or distress, not necessarily reflected in perceived health.

^c Population aged 15 and over who reported that they have been diagnosed by a health professional as having arthritis. Arthritis includes rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis, but excludes fibromyalgia. In the 2011 French questionnaire, the word "arthrose" was added to the arthritis question as respondents tend to associate the word "arthrite" with rheumatoid arthritis and "arthrose" with degenerative arthritis. This lead to an increase in reported arthritis for 2011. However, the word "arthrose" was then omitted from the question in 2012, leading to a decrease in the reported arthritis estimates for the province of Quebec and subsequently at the national level. Therefore, the data for the arthritis indicator in 2011 should be used with caution.

^d Population aged 12 and over who reported that they have been diagnosed by a health professional as having Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes. Diabetes includes females 15 and over who reported that they have been diagnosed with gestational diabetes.

^e Population aged 35 and over who reported being diagnosed by a health professional with chronic bronchitis, emphysema or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Not available for 2007-2008.

^f Population aged 12 and over who reported that they have been diagnosed by a health professional as having a mood disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, mania or dysthymia.

^g Population aged 12 and over reporting measures of overall functional health, based on 8 dimensions of functioning (vision, hearing, speech, mobility, dexterity, feelings, cognition and pain). This indicator is derived from data collected from an optional content module. Only provincial and sub-provincial estimates are available for years when the module was selected by a given province. National estimates are not available unless the module became part of biennial or quadrennial common content blocks in a given survey year. Please refer to the document "CCHS content overview" available for the survey under the documentation section of the Definitions, data sources and methods page on the Statistics Canada website. Not available for 2007-2008 and 2011-2012.

^h Population aged 12 and over who reported being limited in selected activities (home, school, work and other activities) because of a physical condition, mental condition or health problem which has lasted or is expected to last 6 months or longer. This indicator is derived from data collected from an optional content module. Only provincial and sub-provincial estimates are available for years when the module was selected by a given province. National estimates are not available unless the module became part of biennial or quadrennial common content blocks in a given survey year. Please refer to the document "CCHS content overview" available for the survey under the documentation section of the Definitions, data sources and methods page on the Statistics Canada website. Only available for the territories in 2011-2012.

E denotes a high sampling variability associated with the estimate. The coefficient of variation for these estimates is equal to or falls between 16.6% and 33.3%. Please use with caution.

Proxy Interview

In cases where the selected respondent was, for reasons of physical or mental health, incapable of completing an interview, another knowledgeable member of the household provided information about the selected respondent.

Self-Assessed Mental Health Status

An individual's own assessment of his or her own mental health. Classified by asking an individual to rank their mental health into one of five categories: excellent, very good, good, fair, or poor.

Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS)

The Canadian Community Health Survey is a cross-sectional survey that collects information related to health status, health care utilization and health determinants for the Canadian population. It is designed to answer two crucial questions:

1. How healthy are Canadians?

2. How healthy is the Canadian health care system?

The CCHS targets persons age 12 years and older living in private dwellings. Excluded from the sample are individuals living on Indian Reserves or Crown Lands, institutional residents, full time members of the Canadian Armed Forces and residents in certain remote areas.

Self-Assessed Health Status

An individual's own assessment of his or her health. Classified by asking respondents to rank their health into one of five categories: excellent, very good, good, fair, or poor. Considered to be the best single indicator of perceived level of health.

Chronic Conditions

Only refers to "long-term conditions" which are expected to last or have already lasted 6 months or more and have been diagnosed by a health professional.

Each condition shown under this category was asked separately to respondents. Thus, the percentages shown represent the percentage of people in the survey who indicated they have the particular condition.

Confidence Interval

A confidence interval gives an estimated range of values which is likely to include an unknown population parameter, the estimated range being calculated from a given set of sample data.

If independent samples are taken repeatedly from the same population, and a confidence interval calculated for each sample, then a certain percentage (confidence level) of the intervals will include the unknown population parameter. A confidence level of 95% implies that 95% of all samples would give an interval that includes the population parameter.

The width of the confidence interval gives us some idea about how uncertain we are about the unknown parameter. A very wide interval may indicate that more data should be collected before anything very definite can be said about the parameter.

Confidence Level

The confidence level is the probability value (1-alpha) associated with a confidence interval.

It is often expressed as a percentage. For example, say alpha = 0.05 = 5%, then the confidence level is equal to (1-0.05) = 0.95, i.e. a 95% confidence level.

If independent samples are taken repeatedly from the same population, and a confidence interval calculated for each sample, then a certain percentage (confidence level) of the intervals will include the unknown population parameter. A confidence level of 95% implies that 95% of all samples would give an interval that includes the population parameter.

Example:
Suppose an opinion poll predicted that, if the election were held today, the Conservative party would win 60% of the vote. The pollster might attach a 95% confidence level to the interval 60% plus or minus 3%. That is, he thinks it very likely that the Conservative party would get between 57% and 63% of the total vote.

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