Canadian Spinal Cord Injury Healthcare Policy Review and Assessment

Over 80,000 Canadians live with spinal cord injury, a condition requiring chronic management. This dataset is a scoping policy review analyzing provincial and federal delivery of attendant services, bladder/bowel supplies, and wheelchairs for this population. The work, authored by Peter B. Warkentin and last updated in April 2026, found widespread discrepancies and inadequacies in care quality and funding.

Use Cases

• Analyze provincial variability in healthcare funding based on the described policy review of 10 provinces.
• Model the impact of means-testing on access to care based on the reported prevalence of income-based restrictions.
• Identify gaps between policy and practice based on the described key informant interviews.
• Compare coverage mechanisms for different supplies (e.g., wheelchairs vs. medical supplies) based on the described eligibility criteria.

Strengths

• Focuses on a specific, high-need population of over 80,000 Canadians with spinal cord injury.
• Explicitly compares policies across 10 provinces and federal programs for Veterans and Indigenous Canadians.
• Employs a mixed-methods approach combining policy document review with key informant interviews.

Limitations

• The dataset is a 90.9 KB PDF document, indicating a limited scope of raw data.
• Row count and column-level documentation are absent; data is presented in a narrative, report format.
• Freshness should be verified as the last update date is in the future (2026-04-13).

Provenance

Source

figshare, authored by Peter B. Warkentin.

Collection Method

Scoping policy review of online documentation and key informant interviews.

Time Range

The study period is not explicitly stated in the provided description.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-13 05:48:50

Geography

Canada, with analysis at provincial and federal levels.