The SPI is interpreted much like an
intelligence quotient (IQ), with an average of 100. A high value
reflects undesirable social problem levels and represents the extent of
"social malaise".
In order to compare scores over time, the value of 100 was assigned to
Canada's SPI for 1956. SPI values for other years were calculated in
relation to the 1956 score. The results show that our social
problem rates rose steadily until 1991, followed by a reduction in
1996, and again in 2001 (click here to view this graphically). Notably, SPI values increase significantly as we move from east to
west across Canada. |
Derivation. In the early
seventies, a serendipidous observation that provinces with high
homicide rates also showed high rates of suicide and divorce, led to a
more systematic examination of these, and other social problems. The
eight factors listed above showed high intercorrelations across
provinces (Such data were not recorded for Canada's territories at that
time). A principal components analysis of these data showed that the
eight problems could be efficiently described by a single index that
accounted for about 64% of the variability among the eight factors.
Findings were very much alike for both 1971 and 1981.
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