TOPICS

How To Use HealthSTATS

The HealthSTATS dashboards present an organized, interactive way to explore public health data, offering various sources and indicators for deeper insights.

For the best experience, use a desktop or laptop computer. To open a dashboard in a separate window, click the link located above the dashboard.

Each dashboard may differ based on the type of content, data, and analyses it presents. This guide offers general instructions to help you navigate the interactive dashboards and explore the data they contain effectively.

HealthSTATS Dashboard Resource_v22

There are several pages within each dashboard. You can navigate between pages using the Page Navigator across the top. The page currently being displayed is purple, and unselected pages are light blue.

OR, you can use the < > arrows at the bottom of the dashboard to move through pages.

Dashboards will have different types of pages depending on what’s included in the dashboards. General types of dashboard pages may include:

Overview: A high-level summary of all the data in the dashboard.
Subpopulations: Analysis broken down by subpopulations such as age group, sex, gender, income or material deprivation, and/or education level. Subpopulation analysis also includes a rate ratio comparing the rate or likelihood of the indicator of interest across groups, and may also include a population impact number calculation. Multiple years of data may be combined together for these analyses.
Geographic Areas: Displays the measure of interest across sub-health unit geography where available, including by municipality and by public health planning area. In some cases data from multiple years may be combined for analysis.
Topic-specific Pages: Data may be presented on specific topics, combining elements of the above-mentioned overview, subpopulations and geographic areas pages (e.g., individual pages for Self-Rated Mental Health and Stress in the Adult Mental Health dashboard, or Cancer Incidence, Cancer Mortality and Cancer Screening as separate pages in the Cancer dashboard).
Technical Notes: All HealthSTATS dashboards have a Technical Notes page that contains the following:

For More Information: Links to additional resources at the health unit or at external organizations such as Public Health Ontario.
Interpretation: Any additional information that is relevant to understanding what is included in the dashboard. This can include additional context about the data, links to glossary terms, and detailed description of the indicators and how they are calculated.

Data Sources: Reference to the specific data sources used in the dashboard.
Dashboard Last Updated: The date when the content of the dashboard was last updated.

Filters allow you to select different data (e.g. by Indicator or Year) to view. Selected filters are purple, and unselected filters are light blue. There may be multiple available filters on a page to allow you to sort by different subgroups, time periods, geographies or other factors.

Filters may be clickable buttons or drop-down menus. Drop down menus are purple and include a small arrow at the right end of the filter button that allows you to select an alternative option from a drop-down list.

PowerBISlicers

Selecting filters can change the content of graphs, maps, tables and text boxes. Titles on graphs and tables will also update to clarify what data are being displayed based on the filters selected.

When navigating between pages within a dashboard, keep in mind that filters are independent on each page. This means that filters applied on one page will not carry over to the next. Different pages may offer unique filter options, or you may need to manually reapply the same filters to ensure consistent data views. For example, if you're exploring breast cancer data on the "Cancer Incidence", "Cancer Mortality", and "Cancer Screening" pages within the Cancer dashboard, you'll need to re-select the "Breast Cancer" filter on each page to maintain focus on that specific condition.

Titles describe the data presented in graphs, maps and tables, including the type of calculation, the type of data, what geographies are being considered, if any subgroups, such as age are included, and the time period. These are responsive to changing filters, and so will describe what data are displayed in the graphs, maps or tables based on the combination of filters selected on that page.

PowerBITitles

When visiting a dashboard on a laptop or desktop computer, hovering your mouse over a graph or map may provide additional information about that specific part of the display. This can include information that doesn’t fit, such as place names, or it can provide the exact values for a measure.

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Clicking on specific objects in graphs or maps, or specific rows in tables can select an item, which will filter all connected visuals to that specific item (e.g., Huntsville). To remove this filtering, simply click again on the same visual (e.g., the graph) to return to showing all records in all connected visuals.

PowerBISelectingData

The order of rows in tables can be re-ordered by clicking on column headers. For example, you could sort a table by geography or by rate. Clicking a second time on the same column will re-order the rows in the reverse order (e.g., rate from lowest to highest or highest to lowest).

Some objects (tables and text boxes) have too much content to show all at once. A thin grey scroll bar can be found down the right side of an object. You can click and hold the bar or use a scroll wheel to scroll down to see more content.

Power BI allows you to focus in on specific visuals, and to view the content of graphs and maps as a table. To activate focus mode, hover your mouse above the top right corner of a visual and click on the “Focus mode” button. Once you’ve opened focus mode, you can right click on a graph and select “Show as a table” to see the data in table format.

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You can adjust the level of zoom within a dashboard using the zoom bar in the bottom right corner of the Power BI dashboard or using your computer’s keyboard (Ctrl +/- for Windows and Option-Command =/- for Mac) or your mouse scroll wheel.

Most text boxes and tables in HealthSTATS dashboards allow you to copy content directly to your clipboard for use in other programs, such as Word or Excel. Here's how to do it:

1. Copying a single cell or row:

Click on a row to highlight it.
Right-click to open the context menu.
Under Copy, choose:

Copy Value to copy the specific cell content (e.g., a number like “5” or a paragraph of text).
Copy Selection to copy the entire row, including all columns and their headings.

2. Copying Multiple Rows:

Hold down the Shift key on Windows or the Command key on Mac.
Click on each additional row you want to highlight.
Once you've selected the desired rows, right-click and choose Copy Selection.

The selected content is now saved to your clipboard and can be pasted into other applications for further analysis or reporting.

For larger tables and for graphs and maps, a screenshot is the best way to copy the dashboard contents. In Windows, the Snipping Tool is available by default or you can use Windows Key + Shift + S to take screenshots of parts of your screen that can be saved to your clipboard. On Mac computers there is a Screenshot app, or Command + Shift + 3 can be used to select a portion of your screen to save to your clipboard or desktop.

To save a screenshot that includes the hover text, the Delay feature in Snipping Tool can be used.

Where possible, we have included information for Simcoe Muskoka and Ontario, as well as sub-health unit geographies. Sub-health unit geographies include Simcoe County and Muskoka District, as well as municipality and public health planning areas. This is not available for all data sources. For more information about area-based analysis and sub-health unit geographies, see our resource on Area-Based Analysis on HealthSTATS.

Data used in our HealthSTATS dashboards is available for download as Excel spreadsheet files. These files can be found on each dashboard’s webpage, where it states “Data used in this dashboard is available for download.”

HealthSTATS dashboards provide data about demographics, health status and health behaviours in our region. To learn more about related health unit programs and services and resources available from other organizations, please see the links provided under “For More Information” on the Technical Notes pages of all our dashboards.

HealthSTATS dashboards use counts, rates, confidence intervals, ratios and other statistical measures to describe health status, health behaviours and other data about our local community. Our Glossary provides definitions for these and other technical terms used in our dashboards. The Technical Notes page on each dashboard provides links to any glossary terms used.

Generic citation: SMDHU. HealthSTATS Topic Dashboard [dashboard]. Barrie, ON: Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit; Dashboard Last Updated: Date [Date Accessed: Date]. Dashboard URL

Example: SMDHU. HealthSTATS Cancer Dashboard [dashboard]. Barrie, ON: Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit; Dashboard Last Updated: 2023 September 20 [Date Accessed: 2023 October 20]. https://www.simcoemuskokahealth.org/Health-Stats/HealthStatsHome/ChronicDiseases/Cancer