Research Guides: Data & Statistical Resources at the UTM Library: Quick Sources for Data & Data "Search Strategy"

Quick Sources for Data

Statista This link opens in a new window
Categorized into 21 market sectors, Statista.com provides direct access to quantitative data on media, business, finance, politics, and a wide variety of other areas of interest or markets.

Statistics Canada
Canada's national statistical agency. Look up population numbers, socio-demographic, and economic indicators.
Neighbourhood Information Tool, 2021
A snapshot of Neighbourhood Well-being for the region of Peel.
Peel Data Portal
Access open data for Peel Region including population, industry, and environment statistics.
City of Toronto Data, Research & Maps
Access statistics for Toronto including open data and neighbourhood profiles.
Health Data (Local, Ontario, Canada, USA, World)
Access a variety of health statistics from around the world.
SimplyAnalytics
Access Census and marketing data for Canadian and the United States Census Geographies. SimplyAnalytics also includes business location data for neighbourhood analysis.

Suggested "Data Search Strategy"

1. What is the Geography or Area you are looking at for your data study? Are you looking at local neighbourhoods like Streetsville, whole cities such as Mississauga, regions like the Greater Toronto Area, provinces or countries?.

2. What is your time period? Do you need the most recent or historical data?

3. What is your population or unit of measurement? Are you looking at total numbers of people, households, women, youth, etc.?

4. What specific variables are you looking for? (age ranges, income, education, etc)

5. What is your ultimate objective with the data? How will you be using/presenting the data? (Use it in a paper, present in a slideshow, compare with other data, etc)

6. Do you need the data for use in software? Any specific electronic formats? (Excel, NVivo, SPSS, etc)

Other Sources for Research Data

National Statistical Agencies
- For example, Statistics Canada produces the census every 5 years, plus hundreds of individual, household, business, and social surveys.
Federal & Provincial Departments & Ministries may collect and disseminate their own data through their websites
Municipal Governments will often have lots of local statistics on population, local economy, environment, etc. often times these will be on their website, but also in pdf reports
Open Data Collections
NGO Data Repositories
- For example, Roper and the Pew Research Centres offer non-partisan public opinion data on a wide range of social topics
Institutional Repositories (Publications and Datasets)
- For example, the University of Toronto has TSpace and Borealis holding research materials generated by university researchers.
Disciplinary/Subject data Repositories
- For example, ICPSR is one of the world's leading social science research data archives
- The re3data.org is a worldwide registry of data repositories
Federated Repositories
- Canada's Federated Research Data Repository (FRDR)