Integrating siloed data: A methodological approach to housing research in Ottawa, Canada

Abstract

Siloed data hinder the development of meaningful data tools on social and health issues. Housing is a social determinant of health that in recent years has become a major affordability issue in Canada. Data tools that provide a comprehensive overview of housing are necessary to support evidence-based policy, but housing data in Canada are siloed within a disparate array of data stewards. We describe the process of identifying and acquiring housing datasets from a wide variety of sources to create an integrated housing profile for Ottawa, Canada using a natural neighbourhood construct. We disseminated this knowledge through interactive maps and storytelling narratives. We offer recommendations to facilitate research using secondary data from multiple sources, including developing professional networks for inter-organizational collaboration, standardizing metadata across data stewards, and using creative narratives to integrate data in dissemination.