The New Health Outcomes Index

Archived Topic Box from the 2005 Fifth Annual Benchmark Report

The introduction of the Health Outcomes Index coincides with an expansion of the BC Progress Board's benchmarking of health indicators. New to our formal reporting structure this year are: cardiovascular disease mortality; infant mortality; and, potential years of life lost. With the exception of infant mortality these topics have been covered in previous reports as supplemental information; from this year forward, all three are included as performance indicators.

The switch to an index for Core Target 5 from life expectancy at birth is motivated by the desire to give broader recognition to the importance of the new performance indicators. British Columbia held the top rank among provinces for life expectancy at birth in every year but one between 1993 and 2002 and held the top rank on the index in each of those years. British Columbia has strong health outcome results within Canada and compared to the world at large. There is always room for improvement, however.

British Columbia's best rank on all five components of the index over the 1993 through 2002 period was first. In addition, the most frequent rank (the "mode" in statistical parlance) was first for all but PYLL (potential years of life lost) where it was second. The worst rank BC earned on cancer mortality was third in 1997 and the worst cardiovascular disease mortality rank was second in 2001 and 2002. British Columbia's worst PYLL rank was sixth in 1993 and BC's worst rank on infant mortality was sixth in 1995.

The infant mortality rate indicator is moderately volatile. Although BC ranked fifth in 2002, it has the lowest average infant mortality rate among age mortality rate among the provinces for the most recent five and ten year periods. One way of dealing with this for presentation purposes is to report the data using a three year moving average. This option is not utilized in Progress Board reporting because infant mortality is now included in the Health Outcomes Index and adjusting one indicator but not the others makes the results more difficult to interpret accurately. Generally speaking, adjustments such as incorporating a moving average have not been made. In addition to presenting the data without adjustments, the index components all use data for the same year even though more current data are available for some, e.g., life expectancy.

Up-to-date information on the index and its components: life expectancy at birth (performance indicator 17, or PI17); cancer mortality (PI18); cardiovascular mortality (PI19); infant mortality (PI20); and, Potential Years of Life Lost (PI21) is available.