Correlates of health and healthcare performance: applying the Canadian health indicators framework at the provincial-territorial level

Table 5 Correlations between health (status) indicators and community & health system characteristics

	Self-rated health (excellent or very good) [+]	Body mass index higher than 27 [-]	Asthma rate [-]	Diabetes rate [-]	Functional health (perfect or very good) [+]	Life expectancy at birth [+]
*Community & health system characteristics*
Community ^¥
Population [+/-]	0.308	-0.552	0.221	0.125	0.239	0.620
Elderly population [+/-]	0.461	-0.084	0.512	0.841	0.449	0.780^‡
Dependency ratio [-]	-0.525	0.252	-0.739^‡	-0.497	-0.814 ^‡	-0.638 ^†
Urban population [+/-]	0.350	-0.646^†	0.528	0.213	0.518	0.708^†
Health system
Hip replacement [-]	-0.105	-0.092	0.243	-0.065	-0.311	0.196
Knee replacement [-]	-0.652 ^‡	0.228	-0.628^†	-0.749^‡	-0.893 ^‡	-0.774 ^‡
Hysterectomy [-]	0.396	0.252	0.459	0.810 ^‡	0.356	0.460
Bypass surgery [-]	0.634^†	0.236	-0.029	0.584 ^‡	0.155	-0.701 ^†
Resources
Total health expenditure per capita [+]	-0.467	0.068	-0.727 ^‡	-0.814 ^‡	-0.694^‡	-0.773^‡
Public sector health expenditure per capita [+]	-0.473	0.084	-0.544	-0.807 ^‡	-0.510	-0.417
General/family physicians [+]	0.504	-0.416	0.645^‡	0.436	0.641 ^‡	0.575 ^†
Certified specialists [+]	0.399	-0.280	0.556^†	0.626^†	0.499	0.760 ^‡
Registered nurses [+]	-0.310	0.738^‡	-0.175	-0.122	0.011	-0.435
Licensed practical nurses [+]	0.496	0.663^‡	-0.386	0.756^‡	0.206	-0.336
Pharmacists [+]	0.546	0.010	0.798^‡	0.646^‡	0.728 ^‡	0.782 ^‡
Total physicians [+]	0.576 ^†	-0.445	0.772^‡	0.696^‡	0.730 ^‡	0.872 ^‡

[-] implies that lower levels of the indicator are preferred
[+] implies that higher levels of the indicator are preferred
^† P < 0.05
^‡ P < 0.01
Bold: correlation is significant in the possibly preferred direction and exceeds the critical level necessary for the sample size
Italicized: correlation is in the possibly preferred direction but is not significant at the critical level necessary for the sample size
^¥ Only the dependency ratio indicator is assessed here using the decision rule since the other indicators could be preferred either way depending on the goal and audience

ISSN: 1472-6963