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 are designed to support research workflows, but the interface is still evolving. Coverage is expanding, and some pages 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.

If you need bulk access, reproducible exports, or specific capture coverage for a study, please reach out via the contact page.

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/exports

Dataset releases

Quarterly metadata-only dataset releases are published on GitHub with checksums.

HealthArchive dataset releases

For field definitions and limitations, see /exports.

Request checklist

  • 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 format (CSV or JSONL) and any deadline.

For bulk exports or custom requests, contact the project maintainers via the contact page. We aim to respond within 7 days, but it may take longer depending on workload (include any deadline).

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.

HealthArchive.ca Project. “<Page title>” (snapshot from < capture date/time>). Archived copy of <original agency> web page (<original URL>). Accessed <access date>. Available from: <HealthArchive.ca snapshot URL>.

For example, for a COVID-19 epidemiology update snapshot:

HealthArchive.ca Project. “COVID-19 epidemiology update: Canada” (snapshot from 15 Feb 2025). Archived copy of Public Health Agency of Canada web page (https://www.canada.ca/...). Accessed 3 Dec 2025. Available from: https://healtharchive.ca/snapshot/12345.

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.