According to The Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA), “for the first time in our history the number of Canadians over 65 has exceeded the number of those aged 14 and under. In fact, by 2031, one in four Canadians will be 65 or older”. This reflects positively on our countries good standard of living and high quality health care. In fact, we are living longer than ever; life expectancy in Canada today is 80 years for men and 84 years for women.

Data access has been approved for a research study to help us to understand how a medication administered during pregnancy influences longer-term child neurodevelopment.

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is a quivering or irregular heartbeat that can lead to blood clots, stroke, heart failure and other heart-related complications. AF currently affects approximately 350,000 Canadians, according the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada.

Data access has been approved for a study to determine if the Normal Uncomplicated (NUD) rate, in conjunction with the Adverse Delivery Rate (AD), would provide a new, more reliable measure of the appropriateness of caesarean section use.

Data now fuels decision-making in almost every sector of our society. As a result, interest in data-intensive science is growing rapidly as opportunities to explore this expanding resource source abound. A new and related area of interest for social science researchers is highlighted in a recent article: Population Data Science: The Science of data about people. While related to the fields of data science and informatics, it focuses more broadly on data use for positive impact on individuals and populations.

Following the signing of a General Services Agreement between the BC Ministry of Education (MED) and Population Data BC (PopData), MED data may now be accessed by researchers through PopData.

Our society generates exponential amounts of information every day. Big data now fuels the engines of change and influence, but how can we harness this power to make meaningful social change? Geographic Information Systems (GIS) mapping is one powerful knowledge translation tool that can serve this need.