NDSS - NDSS Description - Rationale for the NDSS Activities

Rationale for the NDSS Activities

A national perspective on the statistics about diabetes is necessary to cost-effectively improve healthcare for people having diabetes.

Until the NDSS, national diabetes surveillance relied on surveys, and diabetes/diabetes-related mortality and hospitalization data. These included the General Social Survey, the Heart Health Surveys, the National Population Health Survey (NPHS), the Aboriginal Peoples Survey, and other regional surveys and studies.

Often these sources were limited by the unreliability of their self-report methods, bias from their small samples, and their inability to longitudinally track diabetes-associated complications, hospitalizations and deaths. Using these results often leads to underestimating the true burden of diabetes.

In addition data extrapolated from research on the population of the United States has also been used. However, it is generally accepted this extrapolation is weak due to differences in the distribution of Canadians' age and ethnicity and a different health care delivery system.

The NDSS will provide reliable, national Canadian statistics about diabetes, helping us to cost-effectively improve healthcare for people having diabetes.