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 First Nations and Inuit Health 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 other B.C. residents (labeled Other Population 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) of First Nations and Inuit Health Branch, Health Canada originating from Department of Indian and Northern Development, and the Status Indian Entitlement files from 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, 27,108 live births in the nine year period 1991-1999 were identified as Status Indian events (see Table 1). More than half (54.2%) of the live births were identified by all three sources, more than a quarter (28.6%) were identified by two sources, and the remaining 17.3% were identified by only one of the three sources.

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

A total of 6,429 deaths were identified by VS, MSP, SVF, or a combination of these sources for the years 1991 through 1999 (see Table 2). Slightly more than one fifth (21.3%) of the deaths were identified by all three sources, two fifths (40.0%) were identified by two sources, and almost two fifths (38.7%) were identified by only one of the three sources.

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.