Rural Community Wellbeing

Helping Rural Stakeholders Identify Trends and Conditions Impacting their Communities. 

ROI is conducting a pilot test of CSA standard R113:22. ROI will work with four rural communities to create a wellbeing dashboard to display selected CSA indicators and related data. The goal is for communities to use the dashboard to assess and interpret their wellbeing within their local rural context. The pilot is expected to be complete by March 2023.

There are many systems for assessing quality of life and wellbeing. However, many of these systems were designed for urban areas, or rely on labour-intensive data collection and analysis. Rural communities require easy access to reliable information that is relevant to the rural context. 

The Canadian Standards Association has developed a new standard, CSA R113:22, to help address these challenges. The standard includes a set of indicators to identify and measure quality of life and wellbeing in rural communities. The CSA indicators provide a standardized approach to assess wellbeing using readily available data sources, common definitions and methods, and a rural focus. The standard will enable communities to establish a baseline, measure progress over time and compare themselves to similar rural communities across Canada.

Want to get involved? 

Please contact info@ruralontarioinstitute.ca for more information, or to express interest in participating in this project.