Community Data Initiatives

The purpose of community data initiatives are to inform:

  1. the delivery, monitoring, and evaluation of Healthy Child Committee of Cabinet (HCCC) policies and programs; and
  2. research and planning that relates to Healthy Child Committee of Cabinet (HCCC) policies and programs.

Manitoba supports the following Community Data Initiatives:


Early Development Instrument (EDI)
The Early Development Instrument (EDI) is a questionnaire that measures Kindergarten children’s readiness for school across several areas of child development. The EDI measures how a community of Kindergarten children is doing compared to children in other communities or provinces. The EDI is never used to assess individual children.

The EDI is funded and coordinated by Manitoba, in partnership with Manitoba Education, Citizenship and Youth, Manitoba school divisions and the Offord Centre for Child Studies (McMaster University). Since 2002/03, the EDI has been phased in on a voluntary basis in school divisions across Manitoba. Bi-annual collection of the EDI began in 2006/07, with 2007/08 being the first “off year”. Additional EDI information is available the Oxford Centre for Child Studies

Manitoba Centre for Healthy Policy (MCHP) Deliverable EDI 2008-2011
This deliverable will build on previous and current MCHP deliverables, and research related to children (e.g., child health atlas, SES and educational outcomes, inequalities in child health, vulnerable children).  It will include descriptive, correlational, and regression analysis using the EDI, such as SES gradients in EDI outcomes, predictors or EDI outcomes, and EDI trends over time.  Analyses will focus on both the population level as well as vulnerable subgroups of children.

Youth Health Survey
The Youth Health Survey (PDF) (YHS) was initiated through Manitoba’s Regional Health Authorities (RHAs) to help in their planning for the health needs of youth.   

The purpose of the YHS is to provide RHAs, communities, schools, and school divisions with current school and community specific information on youth health. The information from the survey is to help guide evidence based planning and evaluation of policies and programs at the school, community, regional, and provincial level.   The YHS provides baseline data on the chronic disease risk factors as well as baseline data from which to evaluate the new Grades 11 and 12 Active Healthy Lifestyles: Physical Education / Health Education curricula.