Data available

Population Data BC (PopData) facilitates access to data from PopData partners, including both federal and provincial sources, and through partnerships with the Government of British Columbia to support the delivery of the Data Innovation Program (DI Program) and Health Data Platform BC (HDPBC). A wide range of data, from both federal and provincial sources is available across these access streams.

It is important to note that data is shared differently by data providers and, as a result, there may be variations in eligibility criteria, data access request processes, requirements in the project lifecycle and whether linkage of data sets across programs/providers is permitted. PopData, the BC Government and other data providers, have worked hard to harmonise processes for Researchers as much as is possible.

For more detailed information on the PopData/HDPBC data access process, go to:  Data access process. For more information on data access for the DI Program, go to: the DI Program website.

Core vs. Non-Core Data

• Core Data: Some BC Ministry of Health data sets available through PopData and HDPBC are called ‘Core Data’. A Core Data set is a standardized ‘bundle’ of commonly requested variables. A Core Data set may not include ALL the variables available in the data set. For example, some Core Data variables, such as geography or organisational codes, are suppressed to meet privacy legislation requirements.
• Non-Core Data: Non-Core Data are variables that are NOT included in the standardized Core Data set. Non-Core Data is available for request as an addition to the Core Data set.

For the majority of DARs, requesting access to Core Data ONLY may make the data access approval process quicker and may expedite data provision. Data requests that include Non-Core Data will be subject to regular rather than expedited processes, both for application review and data provisioning.

Please note that the overall data access request is subject to meeting ALL of the Five SAFEs requirements. For more details, go to:  Eligibility and the Five SAFEs model.

The tables below show the data sets available by category.

Please note: Variables available for a particular data set may differ across the DI Program, PopData and HDPBC streams, so always check to make sure that what you need is available. 

   Demographic 

  Education

  Environment and Resources

  Justice

  Health

  Social

  Transportation

  Work and Income

* If you are planning to link this data set from PopData to data sets available through HDPBC, your project will go through the HDPBC or the DI Program stream, and the above data may be able to be brought in via ‘bring your own data’ (BYOD).