Information about the service

The SOTKAnet Indicator Bank is a National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) information service that offers key population welfare and health data from 1990 onwards on all Finnish municipalities, based on the current administrative division into municipalities. It allows the user to search for indicator data concerning different geographical areas in absolute numbers and percentages, for instance. Indicator descriptions provide information on data content, interpretations, data sources, years covered, and possible restrictions.

The SOTKAnet Indicator Bank's data tables can be viewed in a number of different ways and formats and are easily exported for continued handling in an Excel or other application. Indicator search results can also be examined graphically, as either a line or bar graph, and also pictorially as a geographical map.  One option when viewing the table data is to switch on background shading. This uses three colour tones to represent the search results for different municipalities. The highest 20% of the numerical or percentage values are marked by the darkest tone, the next 60% are shaded in a mid-tone, and the lowest 20% are marked by the lightest tone. However, please note that if you then switch to the map view, five colour tones are used to depict the results, each tone depicting 20% of the values, with the darker tones again representing the highest values. In all map views concerning the different geographical areas, the colour tones are based on municipal-level values.

The SOTKAnet is based on data gathered by THL and other agencies that gather welfare and health data.  Every attempt has been made to guarantee the accuracy of the data through quality assurance procedures which are constantly being developed. We ask all users to report possible errors without delay to SOTKAnet through the feedback form.

Every attempt is made to safeguard the continuity of the SOTKAnet service weekdays between 08.00 and 16.15. There will be a notification in advance via the SOTKAnet Announcements of any service-related maintenance.

The maximum size of SOTKAnet searches

The maximum allowed size for searches limits the number of indicators, areas and years that can be chosen on the search page. The search size is obtained by multiplying together the numbers of chosen indicators, areas and years. The maximum allowed size is 20 000. The search size is not affected by the selection of sex (men, women, combined).

A few examples of search combinations corresponding to the maximum size:

indicators * geographical areas * years = search size

48 * 416 * 1 = 19968 (48 indicators, all municipalities, one year)
16 * 416 * 3 = 19968 (16 indicators, all municipalities, three years)
6 * 416 * 8 = 19968 (six indicators, all municipalities, eight years)
2 * 416 * 17 = 14144 (two indicators, all municipalities, all years)

58 * 20 * 17 = 19720 (58 indicators, all regions, all years)

Other related websites

Information on health, Terveytemme.fi (OurHealth)
Expert-selected key indicators on health and health inequalities.