Map of the Week: Tuberculosis

This week’s map (link) shows rates of tuberculosis.

The data comes from reports sent to medical officers of health in Toronto, Peel, Halton, York and Durham sent to the Ministry of Health in 2008. The Ministry released a spreadsheet in response to an FOI request with the reported disease, the region that the report came from, and the first three characters of the postal code of the patient, which was available in most cases.

The map shows reports of TB cases in 2008, per 1,000 of population.

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Parkdale (M6K) leads the GTA for TB, followed by Cabbagetown and St. Jamestown (M4X) and the neighbourhoods off the Allen north of Lawrence (M6A). Next is L6P, the northern corner of Brampton, followed by M5T, centred on Dundas and Spadina. Next is M1S, a chunk of Scarborough bounded by the 401, Kennedy, Finch and Markham Rd.

Low-population M5E (St. Lawrence neighbourhood) shows up because of its one case.

I haven't been able to find a pre-1920 map for TB in Toronto (there's one for smallpox), but I'd be curious to know how different the downtown pattern in this one is.

TB is present at some level, even if it's only one case, in most of the GTA's postal areas.

4% of cases had no postal code available, and do not appear on the map.

Comments

[Moira Kenny]

Hello,

Is there a file/savable version of the TB map? Is there a place to find more extensive information on how the map was constructed and what its implications are? Thanks very much.