In July 2023, PHSA Research Leaders endorsed the collection of race-, ethnicity-based and Indigenous Identity data according to the Standards for Race-Based and Indigenous Identity Data Collection Health Reporting in Canada developed by the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI). The statement, as well as the CIHI Standard and related resources can be found here. For more information, please contact Holly Longstaff, Director, Research  Integration and Innovation, PHSA.

There is a great deal of data available for research across PHSA and since we became one legal entity, access to these data by PHSA affiliated researchers has never been easier. Please visit our Data Access Security & Privacy page to find links to these data resources.  

The Data Management and Stewardship branch (DMS) of the Ministry of Health is responsible for processing most of the applications for data access for a legally authorized purpose. The majority of requests processed by DMS are requests submitted by other provincial health organizations, other public bodies, or eligible researchers. 

‎Population Data BC (PopData) is a multi-university, data and education resource facilitating interdisciplinary research on the determinants of human health, well-being and development.

‎The Data Access Support Hub (DASH) is a one-stop data access service portal for researchers requiring multi-regional health and health-related administrative data in Canada. DASH streamlines the data access process through its centralized data access request form and harmonizes processes to request data from multiple data repositories across the country.

For more information, please visit the HDRN Canada DASH website. 

The BC Children's Hospital BioBank was established to provide biological samples from patients for researchers. They also provide important services that you might find helpful. The biobank collects and stores biospecimens and associated clinical information from children and women seen at BC Children's and BC Women's for REB-approved research. Stored samples include:

• Pediatric samples: tissue, blood derivatives, bone marrow and more
• Pregnancy related samples: placenta, cord blood derivatives, maternal blood derivatives
  

To apply for use of these samples please go to www.bcchr.ca/biobank  and click on "Researchers". And for more information about the biobank and what samples they might have for your research, please contact the biobank directly.

The Canadian Partnership for Tomorrow's Health (CanPath) Portal provides the research community with the necessary resources to identify epidemiological and biological data available from six participating cohorts to answer innovative research questions. A request for access to CanPath data is initiated directly through the CanPath Portal.

For more information, please visit the CanPath Portal website.

Led by CGEn, HostSeq was established in 2020 with the federal government’s support, as part of Genome Canada’s Canadian COVID-19 Genomics Network (CanCOGeN). HostSeq brought together 16 COVID-19 research studies to sequence the genomes and gather clinical information for more than 10,000 Canadians to understand host genetic contributions to COVID-19, and other health issues.

HostSeq is providing a first-of-its-kind Canadian genomic and clinical databank that is broadly consented for health research, giving Canadian scientists access to a rich dataset to help analyze and identify genetic determinants of health from a Canadian perspective.

For more information, please visit the HostSeq website.

The goal of the CanCOGeN VirusSeq project was to sequence up to 150,000 viral samples from Canadians testing positive for COVID-19. The VirusSeq Data Portal is an open-source and open-access data portal for all Canadian SARS-CoV-2 sequences and associated non-personal contextual data. It harmonizes, validates and automates submission to international databases.

For more information, please visit the Canadian VirusSeq Data Portal website. 

‎The First Nations Information Governance Centre (FNIGC) includes a First Nations Data Centre.

The First Nations Data Centre is a Knowledge Translation resource from FNIGC that provides access to published, unpublished, and record-level data from their respected national survey work.

For more information, please visit the First Nations Data Centre webpage.

The Health Data Platform British Columbia (HDPBC) is a secure platform in the cloud, designed for data research and analysis within the health sector. Serving both the Public Sector and Academia, HDPBC provides essential tools for efficient data analysis and promotes ease of use through streamlined health data access.

For more information, please visit the Health Data Platform BC website.

‎To satisfy a pent-up demand for a secure, enterprise solution for sharing protected personal information with recipients that are external to PHSA, IMITS has developed a Secure File Transfer Service, which allows anyone with a PHSA, VCH or PHC email account to share documents and other files. 

This service mimics Dropbox or other cloud-based file sharing services, except shared files remain in Canada and they are fully encrypted during transmission. It also contains proper authentication controls along with the ability to audit application access—a protection that is not available using non-approved cloud-based services.

Everyone with a health authority email address has already been provisioned access (use your email address and password to log in). The IMITS InfoCentre contains more detailed information about the Secure File Transfer service. You must be on the network to access this site.

Before sharing protected personal information with external recipients, you must get permission. Acceptable external recipients of shared files include:

• Ministry of Health
  
• BC health authorities and other Canadian health organizations
• Universities and other research organizations
• External contractors or vendors
• Private physician offices

If sharing protected health or employee information, you must have approval. If unsure, contact PHSA Privacy  (or, for REB-approved research studies at PHSA, the Research Privacy Office), VCH Privacy Office or Providence Health Privacy Office. The email you choose depends on the owner of the data.

All files containing private/confidential information must be sent with appropriate security measures using passwords or encryption based on the sensitivity of the information. Passwords should be provided in a different manner (e.g. by phone, text). Please also ensure that recipients secure the information appropriately.