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Uses of Postal Codes in Health Data

出版	Statistics Canada, Canadian Centre for Health Information, 1993
URL	http://books.google.com.hk/books?id=sXplswEACAAJ&hl=&source=gbs_api

註釋Using Statistics Canada's Postal Code Conversion File, health data files for which addresses and/or postal codes are available can be coded to the census tract, enumeration area and/or blockface level with a moderate amount of manual intervention. The geographic coordinates of the smallest codeable units (blockfaces or enumeration areas) can be used to determine distances to health service providers such as hospitals and physicians, and to examine possible effects of environmental hazards, based on location and distance relative to known sources of pollution or environmental contamination. Health data coded to local areas can be used to describe health conditions in terms of the smallest geographic units for which statistically reliable data can be produced, aggregated to local administrative or program service areas (such as health and social services regions, districts and units), or aggregated according to neighborhood characteristics (such as the percentage of population under the low-income cut-off). In the latter case, area of residence is used as an indicator of socioeconomic status. Examples of such work include studies of trends in infant mortality and low birth weight by neighborhood income in urban Canada. At a cruder level of approximation, geographic and socioeconomic oriented analyses can be performed using only the first three characters of the postal code rather than the more precise census tracts, enumeration areas or blockfaces based on the full six-character postal code.