Lecture
Watch time: 20 min
Summary
Dr. TJ Salway (Simon Fraser University) walks through Tool 6 of the Canadian Gender and Sex Research Equity Toolkit, on pre-existing, secondary, and older data. Using examples from BC health insurance records and the Canadian Community Health Survey, he shows how researchers can use flawed gender and sex data by being open about its limits and pressing data stewards to improve.
Why This Matters
Much of the health data used to study 2S/LGBTQ people in Canada measured gender and sex poorly for years, so researchers need a way to use it without hiding its flaws.
Binary or blurred gender and sex variables erase trans, nonbinary, Two-Spirit, and intersex people, and leaving those flaws unstated makes findings harder to trust.
Based on Tool 6, researchers can still use flawed data responsibly by writing longer, clearer methods and limitations sections about exactly how gender and sex were measured.
Letters to the editor, emails to data stewards, and public consultations can push agencies like Statistics Canada and provincial health ministries to collect better gender and sex data in the future.
Key Terminology and Concepts
Pre-existing or secondary data: Data the researcher did not collect, such as the census, health records, insurance claims, national surveys, published results, found data online, or older data from past projects.
Administrative sex: The label Wiedmeyer and colleagues gave the M/F gender field in BC's Medical Services Plan records, to show it is a medical and legal marker and may not reflect sex assigned at birth or gender identity.
Transparency and accountability: Tool 6's approach to flawed data. Researchers state plainly what a variable can and cannot show, then raise the problem with the people who collect the data so it gets fixed.
References
Gender & Sex in Methods & Measurement, Tool 6: Working with Pre-Existing, Secondary and Older Data
The toolkit chapter this lecture presents, with worked examples of transparent methods and limitations writing.
Canadian Gender & Sex Research Equity Toolkit
The full free toolkit (Lowik et al., 2022). Tool 4, on measuring genders and sexes, was the subject of an earlier RISE seminar by A.J. Lowik.
SARS-CoV-2 testing and COVID-19 related primary care use among people with citizenship, permanent residency, and temporary immigration status (Wiedmeyer et al., 2023)
Canadian Journal of Public Health study using BC Medical Services Plan data. Salway uses its methods section as an example of labelling the M/F field administrative sex.
Gender/sex disparity in self-reported sleep quality among Canadian adults (Rich et al., 2020)
UBC Medical Journal study Salway uses as a model for describing the Canadian Community Health Survey's gender/sex variable and its limits.
Examining the equity and diversity characteristics of academic general surgeons hired in Canada (Gawad et al., 2023)
Canadian Journal of Surgery study that inferred surgeons' gender from pronouns in online bios, shown as an example of found data.