Canada - World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe

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Health systems in transition Canada
including the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Europe’s
European Health for All database, data from national statistical offices, Eurostat,
the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Health
Data, data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank’s
World Development Indicators and any other relevant sources considered
useful by the authors. Data collection methods and definitions sometimes vary,
but typically are consistent within each separate review.
There have been some challenges in adapting the HiT template to the
Canadian case due largely to the inability to exploit WHO European data
and the difficulty of applying terminology rooted in European history and
health reform experience to Canada. Since the WHO European Health for All
database does not include Canadian data, it was necessary to compare Canada
using OECD and other data sources. For most of these comparisons, Canada
was compared with a smaller set of countries than is customary in HiTs. Five
countries were selected for systematic quantitative comparisons with Canada
based on historical, political, economic and health policy criteria: Australia,
France, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States. To avoid confusion
with an identically named federal programme in the United States, medicare in
Canada is spelled without a capital “M”.
Comments and suggestions for the further development and improvement
of the HiT series are most welcome and can be sent to info@obs.euro.who.int.
HiTs and HiT summaries are available on the Observatory’s web site at
http://www.healthobservatory.eu.