Neighbourhood Equity Index (NEI)
The NEI is a tool to help residents, planners, key stakeholders and decision-makers identify disparities between neighbourhoods and tackle them in a systematic and organized way.
By identifying areas with inequitable opportunities to thrive or inequitable resources, the tool supports cross-sector action planning at the local and systems-level.
The NEI is based on the World Health Organization (WHO)’s Urban HEART (Health Equity Assessment and Response Tool) framework. The methodology comes from research on the social determinants of health, and includes data in five domains (themes) that affect health: economy, social development, physical environment, health and community/belonging. It is a place-based tool, presenting information at the level of local neighbourhoods.
For the NEI, “neighbourhoods” are defined by Statistics Canada’s standard geography called “census tracts”. The Ottawa-specific NEI considers Ottawa’s urban-suburban-rural composition and relates to the existing strong neighbourhood strategies and other data initiatives.
