Tools for an Inclusive Ontario

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6: Introduction to Indicators

A scan of the environment, via the internet, reveals a wide world of social and economic indicators. Communities, cities, neighbourhoods, governments, non-profits, institutions and other groups are using an array of indicators to track change towards goals of improved quality of life, sustainability, healthy communities, healthy cities, etc.

In an important sense, developing social and economic inclusion indicators is building on this foundation. This paper provides a short introduction to this work in North America and internationally.

What are indicators?

According to the International Institute for Sustainable Development:

"Indicators are presentations of measurements. An indicator quantifies and simplifies phenomena and helps us understand complex realities. Indicators are aggregates of raw and processed data but they can be further aggregated to form complex indices."

According to the 1990 Final Report to the Healthy City Office, City of Toronto:

"There are six criteria which an effective indicator system must satisfy. Indicators should be comprehensive in the sense of measuring multiple dimensions of the abstract concept "healthy city", readily available for use as a monitoring system, accessible or meaningful to policy-makers and the public, sensitive to changes over time and to differences among population groups, capable of being used at different levels of aggregation and valid and reliable".

The same report says that there are many types of indicators: those based on qualitative and quantitative research, objective and subjective measures, positive and negative measures and single and multiple item measures. The report advocates for an emphasis on subjective / qualitative indicators that focus on individual perceptions of quality of life, health, livability, and so on.

In a paper prepared for the Laidlaw Foundation meeting on social and economic indices in March, 2003, Peter Clutterbuck cited three types of challenges in developing indicators:

• data challenges, including getting coherence out of complexity and distinguishing between indicators and outcomes,
• methodological challenges, including combining quantitative and qualitative approaches, and
• strategic challenges, including choice of audience for a social inclusion index and linking research capacity with community experience.

The Provincial Advisory Group is considering the following Working Criteria for Indicator Development. Indicators will:

• Be meaningful to the peoples and communities seeking inclusion;
• Identify policies and practices in institutions which serve as barriers to inclusion;
• Be workable and useful in measuring transformative change in institutions;
• Strive to be holistic, indicating the personal, social, economic, health, cultural and spiritual aspects of inclusion; and
• Be transferable to other settings

For a quick look at the indicators, try these websites:

Canada

• Canadian Council on Social Development: View the Social Indicators Launchpad.
• Federation of Canadian Municipalities: View the FCM Quality of Life Reporting System reports.

United States

• National Neighbourhood Indicators Partnership: With 20 partner cities across the US, the NNIP seeks to build capacity in distressed urban neighbourhoods by democratizing access to computerized information systems containing neighbourhood level indicators of social and economic conditions.

International

• International Institute for Sustainable Development: View the Compendium of Sustainable Development Indicator Initiatives.

Researched and written by Krissa Fay.

The opinions expressed in this project do not necessarily reflect the official views of Health Canada, Population Public Health Branch, now the Public Health Agency of Canada, or the Laidlaw Foundation.

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