Consolidation and transformation of administrative data into research dataset

Ontario Early Years Centres (OEYCs) offer programming for young children (0 to 6) and their families. In Hamilton, there are five different OEYCs. The City of Hamilton helps the OEYCs with their planning and with assessing how their programs are helping families. This is complicated, because each OEYC keeps its own data. This project will develop a way to produce a single citywide set of OEYC data, on demand, out of the separate databases. This will improve the quality of the data available to support planning and local decision-making. It will also develop a way to produce a version of the data that is completely anonymous (“de-identified”), but that can be linked to other community data sources. Only by being able to follow children over time can we assess whether investments in early childhood programs are making a difference, which is of interest not just to the City, but to the Government and the citizens of Ontario.

Faculty Supervisor:

Dr. Abigail Payne

Student:

Jacob Travis

Partner:

City of Hamilton

Discipline:

Economics

Sector:

Management of companies and enterprises

University:

McMaster University