Limitations of Canadian COVID-19 data reporting to the general public

Canadian coronavirus (COVID-19) case statistics reported by governmental bodies and news outlets are central to inform the public and to guide health policy. We searched Canadian governmental and news outlets websites to determine how COVID-19 case statistics were reported to the general public, whe...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of public health policy 2022-06, Vol.43 (2), p.203-221
Main Authors: Long, Stephanie, Loutfi, David, Kaufman, Jay S., Schuster, Tibor
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Canada - epidemiology
Coronaviruses
COVID-19
COVID-19 - epidemiology
COVID-19 diagnostic tests
COVID-19 Testing
Data
Disease prevention
Dynamic tests
Ebola virus
Epidemics
Epidemiology
Equality and Human Rights
Ethnicity
General public
Health care policy
Health Policy
Health surveillance
Humans
Infections
Intensive care
Medical Sociology
News
Original
Original Article
Pandemics
Populations
Public Health
Race
Research Design
Social Justice
Social Policy
Social Sciences
Sociology
Standardization
Statistics
Websites
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Description
Summary:Canadian coronavirus (COVID-19) case statistics reported by governmental bodies and news outlets are central to inform the public and to guide health policy. We searched Canadian governmental and news outlets websites to determine how COVID-19 case statistics were reported to the general public, whether they were reported with appropriate denominators, data sources, and accounted for age, sex, and race or ethnicity. Canadian COVID-19 data reporting practices were found to have limited utility due to varying case definitions, heterogeneous and dynamic testing criteria, lack of appropriate standardization accounting for dynamics, sizes, and characteristics of the populations being tested. Population-wide representative COVID-19 testing should be implemented to enable accurate estimation of the scale and dynamics of the epidemiological situation. Comprehensive COVID-19 data on underrepresented and marginalized populations should be collected and reported in an effort to develop equitable health policies.
ISSN:0197-5897
1745-655X
1745-655X
DOI:10.1057/s41271-022-00337-x