IJPDS International Journal of Population Data Science

A new review published in the International Journal of Population Data Science (IJPDS) highlights how linked administrative are helping researchers better understand the many factors that influence child health in Canada, while also identifying important gaps in current research.

Child health is shaped much more than biology alone. Family circumstances, education, immigration, and social conditions all play a role in children’s health and wellbeing. By securely linking routinely collected administrative data from healthcare, education, and social service systems, researchers can study how these factors interact across large populations.

To explore how these data are being used, researchers conducted a scoping review of Canadian studies that linked health with non-health data. The review identified 42 studies examining child health using linked data.

Most studies were conducted in Manitoba and Ontario, reflecting the well-established data linkage infrastructure in those provinces. Common research topics included healthcare use, preventive care, childhood vaccination, and health screening. Among non-health factors, immigration status, household income, educational outcomes, and involvement with child protection services were the areas most frequently investigated.

The review also highlighted several important gaps. While many studies linked children's records with information about their mothers, relatively few included information about fathers. Paternal linkage was reported only in Manitoba and British Columbia, limiting opportunities to better understand fathers' influence on child health outcomes.

Researchers also found that no studies linked health and non-health administrative data across multiple provinces or territories. This limits opportunities to compare child health outcomes across Canada and to better understand how different policies and services influence children's health and wellbeing.

The findings demonstrate the growing value of linked administrative data for child health research, while highlighting opportunities to expand the scope of future studies. The authors suggest that broader data linkages, greater inclusion of paternal information, and increased collaboration across provinces and territories could improve understanding of child health and help inform programmes and services for children and families across Canada.

 

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Yen My Vuu, MSc, Data Science Platform, George & Fay Yee Centre for Healthcare Innovation; Manitoba Centre for Health Policy, College of Community and Global Health, University of Manitoba, Canada

Vuu, Y. M., Urquia, M. L., Lix, L. M. and Hamad, A. F. (2026) “Child Health Research Using Linked Multi-Domain Canadian Administrative Data: A Scoping Review”, International Journal of Population Data Science, 11(1). doi: 10.23889/ijpds.v11i1.3407.