Calls for comprehensive data collection on the health workforce and long-term care sector have been voiced by policy makers, researchers, and public health experts following the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and ongoing health care worker shortages. This paper introduces a novel linked data resource that fills these critical data gaps and establishes a foundation for evidence-informed policy making and workforce planning to strengthen the nursing and residential care system in Canada. This data resource integrates the Nursing and Residential Care Facility Survey, the Canadian Employer-Employee Dynamic Database, and the 2021 Census of Population. The structure, coverage, and content of each component file are described, and the deterministic linkage methodology, response rate, and linkage rates are reported. Through an examination of the long-term care workforce across Canadian provinces, this work demonstrates the analytical potential of the integrated data resource for studying staffing patterns, employment characteristics, and economic outcomes. Strengths of this integrated dataset include its near-national scope, inclusion of administrative earnings data, and capacity to support equity-focused research, and limitations include restricted generalizability because of data gaps in certain jurisdictions. Overall, this linked data resource represents a significant advancement of the residential care data infrastructure, providing essential insights into the Canadian health workforce, including personal support workers, nurses, and other health care providers. By bringing together facility-level characteristics, employment and earning records, and detailed sociodemographic information on workers, in-depth analyses of the care economy across provinces can be conducted to improve Canada's health system, workforce, and patient care.

The health benefits of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) are well established, as are the detrimental impacts of excess sedentary time. Less is known about the benefits of activity undertaken at intensities between sedentary and moderate. This study examines how average daily minutes spent in each movement intensity and average daily steps accumulated in each intensity band varied across population groups by age and sex. It also examines the associations between movement intensities and health indicators.

Residential mobility influences cumulative environmental exposures over the life course, yet few national datasets capture these dynamics across multiple exposure domains. This paper describes the development of the Residential Mobility Exposome File (ReMEF) and the cohort profile.

Canada's population is aging rapidly, with implications for the health care system, including increasing demand for specialist care. However, few studies have examined factors associated with specialist care use, difficulty accessing such care, and the relationship between access difficulties and unmet health care needs among middle-aged (45 to 64 years) and older (65 years or older) adults.

Previous research has shown that Black adults in Canada experience higher cause-specific mortality and differential rates of diagnosis and hospitalization compared with White adults. These disparities may reflect underlying differences in access to health care. This study assesses whether inequalities in access to primary and pharmaceutical health care exist between Black and White adults in Canada.

The COVID-19 pandemic expanded virtual care through telephone, video, and digital communication, with usage patterns varying by patients' sociodemographic and health characteristics. Continued virtual care use after the pandemic highlights the need for updated information on modality choice and patient satisfaction.

The Canadian Active Living Environments (Can-ALE) project was developed in 2019 to provide a standardized, pan-Canadian indicator of how supportive neighbourhood built environments are for physical activity and active transportation, enabling comparisons across places and over time. Can-ALE 1.0 produced measures for the 2006 and 2016 census years, but it did not include 2011 or 2021. As well, the data and processing steps were not packaged in a fully reproducible format, limiting longitudinal analyses and replication. In this study, the original measure was replicated and extended by developing Can-ALE 2.0, an open-source, reproducible R-based workflow to generate Can-ALE metrics for the 2011, 2016, and 2021 census years.

Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer among women in Canada. Breast density substantially influences breast cancer risk and mammography performance. However, OncoSim-Breast, a Canadian microsimulation model representing breast cancer control, including cancer onset, screening, and survival, has not previously explicitly accounted for breast density. This study describes the incorporation of density-specific parameters into the OncoSim-Breast model.

Previous work has noted variability in cancer incidence and cancer-related outcomes according to place of residence. This study examined geographic variability in the incidence and mortality of breast cancer among females in Canada.

Oral health (OH) is an important part of overall health and quality of life. OH conditions are mostly preventable or treatable. Some subpopulations have worse OH than others. Detailed and up-to-date data about the OH of Canada's population are essential for improving care; reducing inequities; and guiding recent policy initiatives, such as the Canadian Dental Care Plan, and measuring their impact.

The accurate monitoring of population mental health requires repeated assessments using valid and reliable measures. The Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWBS) and its short form (SWEMWBS) are widely used positive mental health (PMH) measures ([S]WEMWBS is used hereafter to refer to both). This study tested their validity among Canadian adults using representative health survey data.

Body mass index (BMI) is commonly used to estimate obesity prevalence; however, reliance on BMI alone can lead to an incomplete understanding of obesity's impact on health. In line with the 2025 recommendations of the Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology Commission, this study combines population-level measures of excess adiposity with indicators of physiological dysfunction and activity limitation across eight body system domains to characterize clinical and preclinical obesity among Canadian adults.

Canada's drug toxicity crisis has burdened some populations disproportionately. This study identifies populations facing higher (or lower) rates of acute toxicity death (ATD) relative to a comparison group, using integrated Canadian Census Health and Environment Cohort data.

Accurate and ongoing assessments of physical activity (PA) and sedentary time (SED) are needed to support public health surveillance, evaluate interventions, and advance the understanding of how movement behaviours relate to health. After six cycles of data collection (2007 to 2019) using the Actical (AC) accelerometer, the Canadian Health Measures Survey (CHMS) transitioned to the ActiGraph wGT3X-BT (AG). To understand how estimates from the AC accelerometer may compare with those from the AG in the context of the CHMS, this study compares AC and AG accelerometer estimates of PA, step counts, and SED using CHMS protocols.

Canadians' positive mental health (PMH) decreased during the early and mid stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Less is known about whether PMH recovered as the pandemic transitioned away from being a global health emergency. The aim of the current study was to compare PMH estimates during the late stage of the pandemic with earlier stages.