Final report - Integrated Land Management Bureau

APPENDIX E. INDICATOR FRAMEWORKS AND INDICES IN THE
LITERATURE
The following list provides examples of the many types of social and economic, human wellbeing,
and quality of life indices and indicator frameworks in the literature. Most include
indicators that would not be appropriate for measurement on the North and Central Coast and
thus are not recommended for adoption “as is.”
1. BC Stats Socio-economic Index
The BC Stats Socio-Economic Index compiles a variety of indicators into a single composite
index for each region within the province. The index is intended to show differences between
geographic areas and is not be used as measure of differences over time within a region or
community. The overall Regional Socio-Economic Index is a weighted average of each of the six
sub-indices below. These include:
• Index of Human Economic Hardship
• Index of Crime
• Index of Health Problems
• Index of Education Concerns
• Children at Risk
• Youth at Risk
These indices are available for each of the 78 Local Health Areas, 26 Regional Districts, 15
College Regions, 57 School Districts, 16 Health Service Delivery Areas (which is an aggregation
of an LHA) or five Health Authorities (aggregations of Health Service Delivery Areas) as well as
Georgia and Fraser Basins because of their unique ecological factors. The major drawback of
this index is that the methodology used to develop this index is not appropriate for temporal
comparisons (comparisons over time), only to compare one geographic area with another.
According to the BC Stats Social and Economic Indicators Methodology document, “The design
of the various indices is intended to provide cross-sectional analysis at a point in time. The
developed indices are not designed for temporal analysis. Hence, comparing index values from
one “time slice” to the next could produce misleading results. For example, a drop in an index
value for a particular region from 0.50 to 0.30 does not necessarily mean an improvement in
conditions within the region. The change may be due to other areas becoming relatively worse
off (BC Stats 1999).
2. The Canadian Index of Well-being
In a publication released in March 2007, the Atkinson Foundation announced the development of
a new well-being indicator framework (http://www.ciw.ca) recently established by a national
95