Inventory of Federal, Provincial and Territorial Environmental and Occupational Health Data
Sources and Surveillance Activities

Inventory of Data Sources

Product Safety Information System (PSIS)

Contact
Helen MacLellan
Senior Information Management and Systems Analyst
Consumer Product Safety Bureau
Product Safety Programme
HECS Branch, Health Canada
123 Slater Street
Ottawa, ON
K1A OK9
Tel: (613) 946-6455
E-mail: helen_maclellan@hc-sc.gc.ca

Roy Acres
I.T. Project Leader
HECS Informatics Division
Client Services Centre
Information Management Services Directorate
Information, Analysis and Connectivity Branch
Health Canada
123 Slater Street, Rm C857
Ottawa, ON
(613) 957-2331
E-mail: roy.acres@hc-sc.gc.ca

Organization Maintaining the Database
National Compliance and Information Systems Division
Consumer Product Safety Bureau
Product Safety Programme
Healthy Environments and Consumer Safety Branch
Health Canada

Purpose of Database
This national database is a health surveillance system. The PSIS application captures information about: 1) complaints related to consumer products, including any injury details as well as the victims' age groups and gender; 2) inspections related to consumer products, including enforcement actions taken, such as seizures, recalls, and warning letters.

Content
[Please note that only certain fields are mandatory and the level of completeness of the information captured from record to record varies]. Data on complaints about consumer products; injury details; and inspections, including enforcement actions taken, such as seizures, recalls, and warning letters. Occupational health data (as they relate to consumer product complaints) on: fumes, solvents, chemicals, heavy metals, dangerous machinery. Data types: chemical, demographic, geographic, other (e.g., narrative text may indicate the setting (where exposure occurred)). Personal data: individual's name, age group, gender, address, telephone number. Geolocators: city names, postal codes.

Data elements: The PSIS application was designed to print the various forms in use at the time - e.g., the form associated with a PSIS inspection which is used to record a visit to a trader, a contact or action; or the form used to record a complaint.

Data elements for information on complaints: the source of the complaint; incident date (the date the injury occurred, not the date it was reported); complaint type (92% are consumer complaints); employee and region(s) handling the complaint; date of complaint and of the actions taken; victim's age group (years) (< 1 , 1 - 2 , 3 - 4, 5 - 14, 15 - 19, 20 - 25, 26 - 45, 46 - 55, 56 - 65, 65+); victim's sex; injury type (death, major, minor, no injury); injury nature (cut, fracture, burn, other, strangulation, suffocation, poisoning, bruise, concussion, chemical burn); body part description (free-form text description Varchar2(60)); treatment type (poison control, emergency room, hospital, home, other, none, doctor's office); details describing any other relevant information about the incident (free-form text).

If more than one person was injured or there are multiple injuries associated with the same complaint, the most serious injury would be the one recorded in the fields above, and information on other persons' injuries in the would be described in the Detail field.

Data elements for complaint actions: Product description fields, and the following additional fields for entering data relevant to the complaint: how the product was acquired (borrowed, new, rented, second-hand) and the date acquired; whether the product is regulated; the period of use of the product, if known (free-form text 60 characters); whether there is a warning label on product; whether there is a warning label on package; whether the product was repaired/modified before; whether there are instructions with the product; distributor details; vendor details.

There are 10,799 complaint records in the database and 20,363 inspections records (an inspection is used to record a visit to a trader, a contact, or action. A "visit" can occur by fax or telephone, in some cases.)

Data coding/classification standards: Product categorization is loosely based on the NEISS (U.S. consumer product coding system), but has not been synchronized since inception.

Year Database Established
1995

Coverage Period
1997-2003

Data Updates
Upon receipt of complaints or completion of inspection work, although some persons wait to enter details of multiple activities all at once.

Data Provider
Consumer Product Safety Bureau, Health Canada

Data Availability
The main users of the database are Regional Product
Safety Officers / Inspectors; also Project Officers.

There are security protocols restricting access to the database (Health Canada firewall; list of CPSB user accounts); and guidelines restricting the use or disclosure of the data -- a confidential flag is used to indicate a complainant wants the information to remain confidential. Contact person who is responsible for privacy, use and disclosure: Helen MacLellan (see contact information above).

Requests for information can be forwarded to the National Compliance and Information Systems Division, Product Safety Programme, Health Canada

Reports
Not as of yet. Ad hoc reporting is done on a case-by-case basis.

Additional Comments
Data are collected under the authority of the Hazardous Product Act (Part 1), and the Cosmetic Regulations of the Food and Drug Act.

Documentation on the database is available in printed and electronic formats.