The deprivation index was designed in the late 1990s in order to measure the deprivation of Quebecers on a small geographic scale. It is used for the purposes of researching and monitoring trends on social inequalities in health, developing policies and programs, allocating resources, and evaluating services. It is composed of a material dimension and a social dimension that can be analyzed separately or in combination. The index includes six indicators, all from the 2016 census and calculated on the basis of dissemination areas (DAs).
The file includes the national (province of Quebec), regional (health regions (RSS)), and local (territorial service networks (RTS), local service networks (RLS), and local community service centers (CLSCs)) versions of the deprivation index. In cases where a broadcast area (AD) straddles two territories (in the RTS, RLS and CLSC versions of the file), it is the AD with the largest proportion of the population that determines which RTS, RLS or CLSC is selected in order to have a single deprivation index value per AD for mapping. All the results by AD are available in the equivalence table on the [Web site of the National Institute of Public Health of Quebec (INSPQ) ] (https://www.inspq.qc.ca/defavorisation/indice-de-defavorisation-materielle-et-sociale).
For more information on the deprivation index, you can consult [The Material and Social Deprivation Index: in brief] (https://www.inspq.qc.ca/publications/2639).This third party metadata element was translated using an automated translation tool (Amazon Translate).