Analysis of Health Statistics for Status Indians in British Columbia 1991 - 1998

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Definition of Status Indian

Status Indians are one part of the broad group of First Nations people in British Columbia. There is considerable interest in the health status of First Nations people whether Status, Non-Status or Metis, but in most cases, relevant data exist only for Status Indians. In order to analyze the characteristics of any group or population, there needs to be a way to clearly define group membership and identify the events (births, deaths, hospitalizations, etc.) that occur in that group. The sources used in this report to identify Status Indian births and deaths were the British Columbia Vital Statistics Agency, the B.C. Medical Services Plan, and the Indian Status Verification file from the Medical Services Branch, Health Canada. Status Indians were the only First Nations group that could be identified with these files.

This report presents summaries of birth-related and mortality measures as health status indicators for the Status Indian population who were resident in the province, with comparisons to all other B.C. residents (labeled All Others in most tables, maps and charts). The major source of data were the British Columbia Vital Statistics Agency's statistical database (VS) of information extracted from the registration of births and deaths including demographic information, medical information related to the birth or cause of death, and whether the individual was a Status Indian. In addition, two other databases were used to identify Status Indians who were resident in the Province: the Indian Status Verification File (SVF) Medical Services Branch, Health Canada originating from files of the Department of Indian and Northern Development, and the B.C. Medical Services Plan (MSP). Using an extensive computer matching process, a birth or death in the VS database was considered to be a Status Indian event if the individual was identified as a Status Indian in any of the three sources.

Using a combination of VS, MSP and SVF files, 24,159 live births in the eight year period 1991-1998 were identified as Status Indian events (see Table 1). More than half (53.6%) of all births were identified by all three sources, another third (29.5%) were identified by two sources, and the remaining 17.0% were identified by only one of the three sources.

A total of 5,680 deaths were identified by VS, MSP, SVF, or a combination of these sources for the years 1991 through 1998 (see Table 2). More than a quarter (27.8%) were identified as Status Indian in all three data sources, two-fifths (38.0%) were identified in two, and the remaining third (34.2%) were identified by only one source.

By definition, every Status Indian newborn or decedent should be found in all three of these databases. When looking at the methodology for identifying a birth as 'Status Indian', there are reasonable explanations for the proportion which are found in only one or two of the databases. Status Indian parents need to apply for a 'Status' registration number for their child and apply for MSP coverage; therefore for births, the latest year will be less complete because there has been less time for reporting to the sources. For deaths, the individual may be in all three databases but under variations of their name which prevented a match being found. Over time, the proportion of events identified by the three sources has increased each year, while the events identified by only one source have decreased. This project and the cooperative effort between the three programs areas have contributed to these data improvements.

Since this report's definition of Status Indian is determined by a compilation of these three data sources, the data presented in this report may not match data reported by other sources. In addition, it is important to note that this definition is not equivalent to the broader terms such as Aboriginal or First Nations people.

[Click here to download a Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet of the above table]