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Health Services Research (HSR)
CIHI—Your Partner in Health Research
CIHI and the research community are interdependent. Researchers use CIHI data to build on the current body of existing knowledge related to health and to health care. Through their use of CIHI data, regular feedback to CIHI and participation in expert/advisory groups, researchers also contribute to the development and quality of CIHI data and analysis. For its part, CIHI provides data to researchers in accordance with its privacy policies, carries out analytical studies, collaborates with research organizations and individual researchers, and occasionally commissions research in priority areas.
CIHI has developed data holdings in the following areas: health services, health expenditures and
health human resources. Researchers and trainees regularly use these data holdings in their work.
CIHI is in the process of strengthening its research and analytical capacity in order to be a better partner with the research community.
CIHI is also looking at ways to improve the accessibility, quality and timeliness of CIHI data for researchers.
CIHI also develops tools, resources and workshops to support the work of researchers. Areas of focus include
privacy practices, data quality,
classifications and standards.
How to Access CIHI Data
- Determine your needs.
- Prepare a clear statement of your project purpose or research question.
- Determine the data holding(s) from which you will need data and review the relevant data quality and privacy information.
- Develop a list of the scope of data and data elements required to achieve your purpose, including a rationale for each variable requested. The list of data elements for each data holding is available
under health services, health expenditures and
health human resources.
- Initial discussions with CIHI contact.
- Contact CIHI or other custodian of data collected by CIHI (e.g. provincially established research centres) to assist you and/or review your data request.
- Complex data requests may take a significant amount of time to process and often require dialogue between researchers and CIHI. The ideal time to begin planning for a data request is when you are developing your research questions and proposal.
- CIHI can provide cost estimates for data requests (designed on a cost recovery model) that can be included in applications for funding from an external research organization. Please note that CIHI does not fund researcher-initiated projects.
- Complete the two-part form. Part one is the data request and part two is the confidentiality agreement.
Forms can be accessed from the Request
Data page under the Research & Reports menu. Note: some aggregate data is available.
See Quick Stats.
- Record-level data requires a more detailed request form justifying the use of record-level data and, in some cases, also requires Research Ethics Board approval from a university or by legislation. Information that identifies or may partially identify an institution requires the institution’s authorization. Data requests must meet
CIHI’s privacy and confidentiality requirements .
Additional resources to support research include: analytical tools/methods; data quality documents; privacy impact assessments (PIAs); reports providing control totals for cross-checking data; and workshops and standards.
CIHI is committed to assisting graduate students who want use CIHI data. CIHI provides health data to qualifying graduate students at no cost through the
Graduate Student Data Access Program (GSDAP). Students are encouraged to contact CIHI before submitting their application and after they have reviewed the GSDAP information at
www.cihi.ca/gsdap.
Contact
We welcome your questions and suggestions at: research@cihi.ca.
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