Data Linkage of Aboriginal Status Indicators with Leslie Twilley

The Child and Youth Data Laboratory (CYDL), part of the Alberta Centre for Child, Family and Community Research, links and analyzes administrative data from a number of Government of Alberta ministries. The mandate of the CYDL is to provide evidence to inform policy and program development. For the CYDL’s current project, a number of programs are providing Aboriginal status indicators along with data on socio-demographic indicators and government service use. The data will be linked across programs to understand service use patterns, as well as outcomes and determinants for various sub-populations of Albertans. Aboriginal status indicators from more than a dozen Government of Alberta programs will be available as part of the project. These indicators vary in terms of what they represent (treaty status, perceived identity, residence on a reserve, etc.) as well as how status was determined (i.e., self-report, provision of a band number, caseworker decision, etc.). As a first analysis step, the CYDL will determine level of overlap between the different Aboriginal status indicators from the various ministry programs. Comparing the indicators collected by various ministries and programs may also help to understand overlap in services provided to various Aboriginal populations, and may lead to improvements in Aboriginal status indicator collection. This presentation will describe the indicators the CYDL is collecting, how the results will be analyzed, and how the results might be used to inform policies and enhance programs benefitting Aboriginal Albertans