Welcome to the Ontario COVID-19 Heterogeneity Project:
How COVID-19 Affects Communities Differently — Tools to Track Changes over Time
Inequities in the burden of COVID-19 observed across Canada suggest individuals in a community may experience different rates of infection (i.e., heterogeneity within community transmission).
The Ontario COVID-19 Heterogeneity Project examines the trajectory and development of the COVID-19 epidemic through measures of mobility (i.e. movement of people at certain times); through socioeconomic determinants of health (e.g. household income) and transmission-related structural factors (e.g. household size, working onsite in essential services); and by geography (i.e., locations in Ontario such as neighbourhoods). When examined, these measures show us that COVID-19 has affected Ontario communities, urban and rural, in different and in many cases, unequal ways.
To understand the unequal burden that COVID-19 has had on communities in Ontario, the COVID-19 Heterogeneity Project Team created a number of interactive tools that provide real-time data on the impact of COVID-19 on communities and those that live in them:
- Mobility Changes in Ontario - Mobility Tool
- Concentration of COVID-19 cases by Socioeconomic and Structural Factors and Geography in the Greater Toronto Area Tool
- Mobility metric as defined by Google (overall, workplaces, retail and recreation, grocery and pharmacy, mass transit location, parks
- Public health units
- Date range (starting March 1, 2020)
- Desired degree of smoothness in the resulting graph
- Display of policy changes in each health unit (i.e., entering red zone, lockdown (grey zone), stay at home order)
- Use data from all days of the week, or weekdays only
- Display of data points overlaid over smoothed lines


Heterogeneity in COVID-19 Tool: Exploring Area-level Social and Structural Determinants of Health
and Regional Heterogeneity in Ontario
- Geographic region/Public health units
- Date range (January 23, 2020, to October 31, 2021)
- Area-level Social and Structural Determinants of Health (socio-demographic variables, dwelling-related variables, and occupation-related variables)
- Statistical Grouping (Tertile, Quintile)
- Daily Diagnosed or Cumulative



Nous remercions le Conseil de recherches en sciences naturelles et en génie du Canada (CRSNG) de son soutien.