Towards the construction of place-specific measures of deprivation: a case study from the Vancouver metropolitan area

There have been numerous attempts to measure population health outcomes using socio-economic indicators. Few investigations have utilized a survey-based approach. This article develops a new means for identifying key socio-economic indicators of relative health outcomes within greater Vancouver, British Columbia (BC). The index, referred to as the Vancouver Area Neighbourhood Deprivation Index (VANDIX), was constructed from a survey of provincial Medical Health Officers (MHOs). The MHOs were asked to rank socio-economic indicators selected from the 2001 National Census by their relative influence on health outcomes throughout the province. Response consistency was evaluated with a weighted Kappa test statistic. The VANDIX score was assigned to Census Dissemination Areas and Census Tract administrative geographies. The scores were then compared to a subset of the 2003 Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) Cycle 2.1 database on self-assessed health. Outcome scores between the VANDIX and CCHS self-assessed health records were compared with two previously constructed Canadian deprivation indices to examine possible discrepancies in the survey. Research results illustrate the benefit of linking local knowledge from surveys with census-based methodologies.