On our income maps in the MBCDP, both median and average household data are frequently presented.   These terms can be confusing if you don’t know the difference between them, how they are calculated, and how to compare and use them. 
Definitions: 

• Median Household Income:  Median household income refers to the income level earned by a given household where half of the households in the geographic area of interest earn more and half earn less.  The median household income is calculated by rank ordering all households by ascending income and then identifying the income of the most middle household .. i.e. the household that has an equal number of households above and below it.  Median household income is the income cut-off where half of the households earn more, and half earn less.
• Average Household Income:  Average (or mean) household income on the other hand is calculated by dividing the total household income in the target geography by the number of households.   Average household income is the income that all households would have if the total income of all households combined was equally distributed among all households.

Median Household Income is a more accurate summary measure of income: 
Median household income is a more robust and accurate measure for summarizing income at the geographic level as compared to average household income since it is not affected by a small number of extremely high or low income outlier households.   

• In a geographic area, for example, where there happen to be a small number of extremely high income households and a large number of lower income households, the average income can become inflated and give the false impression that all households on average have more money than they actually have.  The median income on the other hand is completely unaffected by high-income outliers and therefore better reflects the income status of the majority of households.   

How to Interpret Median and Average Household Income: 

• If the median and average household incomes are close to equal, this means that either measure can be used to accurately summarize household income at the geographic level.  
• If the average household income is greater than the median household income, this means that there is significant income disproportionately concentrated in the wealthiest households.  In this situation, median income provides a more accurate estimate of the income available to the majority of households since its value is not affected by the high income households.     

A Worked Example: 
Take a look at the article, What the difference between mean and median tells us about income inequality.  This article provides concrete examples of how mean and median are calculated and how to interpret them.
  

Community Center locations have now been added to the Winnipeg Map.    The list of community centers was compiled by Martina Gornik-Marion, a Public Health Dietitian with the WRHA, and geocoded for mapping by Ryan Shirtliffe of the Institute of Urban Studies, University of Winnipeg.   This layer contains Community Centers administered by the City of Winnipeg, the General Council of  Winnipeg Community Centers (GCWCC) as well as a number of independently run community centers.    

In August an Overdose and Drug Related Harms knowledge portal was launched.  The purpose this portal is to provide an easily accessible knowledge base on Overdose and Drug Related Harms in order to engage and educate the public, and to inform policies and programs. 

The portal contains links to relevant reports and research,  an interactive mapping tool which illustrates where suspected drug overdoses are occurring in the  Winnipeg Health Region, links to community resources, and a form where end-users can sign up for Street Connections drug alerts. 

The Manitoba Collaborative Data Portal is now building a solid user base.  As shown in the chart below, there is an average of around 160-200 users accessing the portal every week, and this number is starting to increase.   We are anticipating that the user-base will continue to increase as more people discover the portal and as we implement hands-on training sessions later the in the fall.  

We are now adding a series of Demographic Dashboards to the Manitoba Collaborative Data Portal.   These dashboards allow end-users to create visually appealing and detailed demographic profiles for both small and large geographic areas that can be exported as pdfs as well providing the capacity to export the underlying data. 

The initial dashboard which is now up and running provides detailed data on population size and age structure for the Winnipeg Health Region at the Community Area, Electoral District and Neighorhood levels.  Population counts can be further broken down by both income quintile and neighborhood walkability.   The data source is the 2016 Census.  See below for sample outputs

A queriable Census Ethnocultural Layer has now been added to both the Winnipeg and rural Manitoba maps. This layer allows the flexible extraction of data on the number of North American Aboriginals, Recent Immigrants and Visible Minorities using the Query and Proximity Tools.   

For example, one could user this layer to describe the ethnocultural characteristics of the population living within 2 kms of a school or community center, or alternatively in an Electoral Ward or Winnipeg neighborhood.  See below for sample outputs from this layer when data is extracted using either the Query or Proximity tools. 

The Low Income dot layer on the Winnipeg Health Region map has been updated with data from the 2016 Census.   This layer is based on the Low-income measure , after tax (LIM-AT) method for classifying individuals as living in low income households.   A detailed definition of LIM-AT is available. (click on the hyperlink). 

The Low-income dot layer is a very effective tool for illustrating the location and magnitude of low-income populations in Winnipeg.   Each dot represents 5 individuals, and the the different color dots represent different age ranges (0-5 yrs, 6-17 yrs, 18-64 yrs, 65 plus). 

As shown below, there are low-income individuals living in all parts of Winnipeg

The Manitoba Collaborative Data Portal (MBCDP) was soft-launched on April 10th.   On April 10  the Community Data Program, an initiative of  the Canadian Council on  Social Development hosted a national Webinar where the MBCDP was highlighted.

There is interest in show-casing the MBCDP project as an example of how Census and other community data can be made more easily accessible to key community stake-holders for planning and action.  This has been identified as a challenge across Canada. The  Community Data Program is also interested in sharing learnings across Canada around how the Manitoba Census Data Consortium functions.