A Pan-Canadian Data Resource for Monitoring Child Developmental Health: The Canadian Neighbourhoods Early Child Development (CanNECD) Database

Abstract

The Canadian Neighbourhoods Early Child Development (CanNECD) database is a unique resource for research on child developmental health and well-being within the socioeconomic and cultural context of Canadian neighbourhoods. This paper describes the CanNECD database and highlights its potential for advancing research at the intersection of child development, social determinants of health, and neighborhood effects.
 The CanNECD database contains Pan-Canadian population-level child developmental health data collected through regional implementation of the Early Development Instrument (EDI), geo-coded information on residential neighbourhoods covering all of Canada, and socioeconomic and demographic variables from the Canada Census and Income Taxfiler database. The data are de-identified but linkable across datasets through use of common numeric sequences. The nearly 800,000 records spanning 2003-2014 and representing all Canadian provinces and territories (with the exception of Nunavut) are compiled in a secure electronic collection system at the Offord Centre for Child Studies, McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada.
 Early studies using the EDI demonstrated its utility as a tool for assessing child developmental health at a population level, and its potential for both community-level and large-scale monitoring of child populations. Research using the CanNECD database is now examining to what extent social determinants and the steepness of the social gradients of developmental health differ between geographical jurisdictions and between different sub-populations. We are also working to identify outlier neighbourhoods in which EDI scores are substantially higher or lower than predicted by a neighbourhood’s demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, and exploring other potentially important determinants of children’s developmental health. Finally, we are examining the extent to which change-over-time in aggregate EDI scores vary geographically, and how well it coincides with changes in socioeconomic factors. Thus, the CanNECD database offers the opportunity for research that will inform national policies and strategies on child developmental health.

Neighbourhood-level socioeconomic status and prevalence of teacher-reported health disorders among Canadian kindergarten children

“…These custom neighborhoods span the whole country and were defined using Statistics Canada’s dissemination blocks ( 49 ). Neighborhoods were created based on a minimum of 50 valid EDI records and a maximum of 400–600 valid EDI records per neighborhood ( 48 , 50 ). Fifty records were used as the minimum number based on a previous EDI reliability study ( 51 ) and the maximum number of 400–600 was chosen in order to denote the sociodemographic heterogeneity in urban areas ( 52 ).…”

Does social capital flatten the social gradient in early childhood development? An ecological study of two provinces in Canada

“…The CanNECD Study contains neighborhood-level data aggregated from population-based surveys of early childhood development for 12 out of all 13 Canadian provinces/territories, and linked with census and Canadian tax-filer data on socioeconomic indicators. For this study, we used the early childhood development data about children around age 5, collected under government mandate between 2007 and 2009 in the province of Ontario, and between 2009 and 2012 in BC (Guhn et al, 2016;Janus et al, 2018). In both provinces, all publicly-funded school districts were included.…”

Immigrant and ethnic neighbourhood concentration and reduced child developmental vulnerability

“…This research is a part of the Canadian Neighbourhoods and Early Child Development (CanNECD) study [25]. Data were obtained from the Early Development Instrument (EDI) database housed at the Offord Centre for Child Studies, Mc-Master University [26]. Data are collected for individual children and then aggregated and analyzed at the neighbourhoodlevel.…”