Quality of Life: Physical Environment Index

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Abstract

The physical environment represents the external conditions under which we live. It includes aspects of housing, access to services, environmental quality and personal security. Eight indicators have been used to assess aspects of the quality of the physical environment. Only communities (census subdivisions) with data for all indicators have been mapped.

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This map shows the quality of the physical environment: the environment in which people live. It includes aspects of access to services, security and safety, and environmental conditions pertaining to air quality and housing.

Indicators of the Physical Environment

The following eight indicators were used to assess the important aspects of the quality of the physical environment.

Housing

• Percentage of population living in housing requiring major repairs (inverse)
• Average number of persons per room (inverse)
• Percentage of household incomes with owner’s major payments (or gross rent) for shelter being greater than or equal to 30 per cent of household income (inverse)

Accessibility to Services

• Distance from centre of census subdivision to nearest hospital (inverse)

Environmental Quality

• Density of dwellings requiring major repairs (inverse)
• Air quality: measured as total pollutant particulate matter emissions (inverse)

Personal Security

• Incidence of personal crime (inverse)
• Incidence of property crime (inverse)

The national coverage for the personal security indicators is less than that for the other indicators of the physical environment. Consequently, a separate physical environment index thematic map layer, called the physical environment index (with personal security), includes these data for a reduced number of communities in the index.

Methodology

Five classes have been used to map the quality of the physical environment: low, fair, moderate, good and high. ‘Moderate’ quality of life can be seen as the average, whereas ‘low’ is well below the average and ‘high’ is well above average. A ‘low’ classification for a community implies that it scored low on all indicators of the physical environment; conversely, a community with a ‘high’ classification more than likely scored above average on all indicators. The score for each community (or census subdivision) was calculated using a methodology called the standard score additive method. In this method, the data are standardized. The resulting values, called z-scores, were then added or subtracted, according to the direction of the indicator. The indicator direction is either inverse (–) or direct (+), where inverse indicates that a high value implies a lower quality of life; conversely, a high value for a direct relationship implies a higher quality of life.

Refer to the Data and Mapping Notes section for further details on the methodology and the rationale for choosing the indicators listed above to map the physical environment.

Geographic Description

The map shows variations in the quality of the physical environment in Canada, except for some areas in the Yukon Territory and Northwest Territories. Only communities with data for all the physical environment indicators have been mapped. In western Canada, the quality of the physical environment generally ranges from high to good, except for the largest cities (Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg and Regina), which generally score moderate. The same distribution is evident in Ontario and Quebec, although there is more variation between low to high. Eastern Canada generally rates good to high, except for the heavily industrialized cities of Dartmouth, Halifax and the Municipality of Cape Breton, and the interior of New Brunswick, which have moderate values (Figure 1).

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Figure 1. Distribution of Quality of the Physical Environment in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick

Use the various zoom mapping tools, found at the top of the map, to zoom into locations across Canada to compare the quality of the physical environment from region to region, city to city or town to town. Use the Get Statistics tool to view the data used to derive the index value for each community. Alternatively, turn on one of the indicator thematic map layers to view the distribution of each indicator of the physical environment. Each indicator is divided into five classes, with the average value falling in the middle and two classes occurring above and below. Table 1 is a comparison of the quality of the physical environment among larger urban centres, with populations of more than 150 000.

Table 1. Quality of the Physical Environment of Canada’s Most Populated Cities

For another perspective on the quality of the physical environment, please request the following .xls file phyc_e.xls from Contact Us to view the results of the metropolitan influence zone classification, used to classify municipalities (census subdivisions) that lie outside census metropolitan areas (CMAs) and census agglomerations (CAs), according to the degree of influence that CMA/CAs have on them. This classification precedes standardization of the data, prior to the addition of the z-scores. In this table, only communities (census subdivisions) with the same classification are compared to one another. Refer to the Data and Mapping Notes section for more information on the classification methodology.