For researchers
Using HealthArchive.ca for research and analysis
This project is being designed so that epidemiologists, health services researchers, policy analysts, and data journalists can reliably reconstruct what Canadian public health sites showed at specific points in time.
Examples of research use cases
- Policy and guideline history: Tracking how public health guidance on subjects such as COVID-19 vaccination, seasonal influenza, or naloxone distribution has changed over time.
- Reproducibility of analyses: Linking analytic work to the exact wording and tables visible on a given date, rather than relying on whatever the current version of a page shows.
- Media and communication studies: Examining how risk communication, disclaimers, or focus on specific populations evolved across different periods.
- Audit and accountability: Comparing archived content with later messaging to understand shifts in emphasis, framing, or scope.
Working with the archive
The archive explorer and snapshot viewer support research within the existing, bounded corpus. Coverage is limited to selected sources, dates, and successful captures; some pages or assets may be missing or incomplete.
- Keyword search with filters by source.
- A pages view (latest capture per URL) and a snapshots view (all captures).
- A “browse by source” view summarizing coverage for each source.
- Snapshot detail pages with capture metadata and the archived HTML when available.
- Change tracking and compare views that highlight descriptive text differences between archived captures.
Questions about whether the existing corpus covers a source or date may be sent through the contact page for assessment. Contact does not commit the project to new capture work, broader coverage, or a custom export.
Research access & exports
HealthArchive provides metadata-only exports for research. Exports do not include raw HTML or full diff bodies.
Export manifest
https://api.healtharchive.ca/api/exportsDataset releases
Current release posture: existing releases remain available with checksums; scheduled publication is paused, and any future release requires explicit maintainer approval, manual dispatch, and rights/schema review.
Dataset controls verified on 2026-08-12: the published workflows are manual-only, the rights notice resolves, and exact 15-snapshot / 24-change schema guards are active.
HealthArchive dataset releases · Dataset provenance and reuse notice
For field definitions and limitations, see /exports.
Information for an access assessment
- Sources and date ranges needed.
- Snapshot-level vs page-level grouping.
- Edition-to-edition vs within-edition changes.
- Intended use (paper, class project, journalism).
- Preferred existing format (CSV or JSONL), if relevant.
Questions about existing bulk-access or export capabilities may be sent to the project maintainers through the contact page for assessment. Responses depend on available capacity; no custom export, new capture work, or response time is promised.
Citing HealthArchive.ca
Citation guidance is available on the cite page. A pragmatic format for referencing an archived page from HealthArchive.ca is:
See /cite for a shareable handout and compare-view citation guidance.
For example, for a COVID-19 epidemiology update snapshot:
Snapshot URLs in the live archive typically use a numeric ID (as in the example above). When citing, use the exact snapshot URL and capture date/time shown on the snapshot detail page you accessed.
When citing a comparison, include both snapshot URLs (A and B), their capture dates, and the HealthArchive compare URL.