Social reports (health status reports, report cards, community profiles, etc.) are documents that provide information on what is known about the general social conditions of a particular population, community, or society. Social reports can either focus on a particular issue or several issues for different population levels (international, national, provincial, and municipal). Current, ongoing Canadian social reporting efforts include the Canadian Council on Social Development's annual social report on children, entitled The Progress of Canada's Children, 1 and the Ontario Social Development Council's report on the well-being of the province, called the Quality of Life Index. 2 Despite the large investments in such social reporting efforts, however, little is known about whether these reports are, in fact, read and used (e.g., to help shape public policy, establish local funding priorities), and whether they in fact do any good. A literature search was conducted on nine databases (e.g., Dissertation Abstracts, Medline,
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