Tobacco Data Provider: From the Prevalence Panel to the Excise Ledger · Head-to-head
Annual Wholesale Trade Survey Financial Estimates vs WHO Global Health Observatory Tobacco
Which tobacco data provider: from the prevalence panel to the excise ledger data fits your job: Annual wholesale trade survey, financial estimates, or WHO Global Health Observatory Legacy Data Repository - Tobacco. API, files, or your warehouse. Daily, weekly, or hourly.
Annual wholesale trade survey, financial estimates (Table 20-10-0077-01)
WHO Global Health Observatory Legacy Data Repository - Tobacco
Where the fields line up
1 shared field — join on these.
| Field | Annual wholesale trade survey, financial estimates | WHO Global Health Observatory Legacy Data Repository - Tobacco |
|---|---|---|
VALUE | Estimate value in the stated unit and scalar. | documented |
Coverage, side by side
| Annual wholesale trade survey, financial estimates | WHO Global Health Observatory Legacy Data Repository - Tobacco | |
|---|---|---|
| Geographic | GEO - Canada or a named province/territory, with DGUID geographic identifier | SpatialDim - ISO3 country code (MYS), with ParentLocation giving the WHO region |
What each contains
Pick by fit, not by loyalty.
| Annual wholesale trade survey, financial estimates | WHO Global Health Observatory Legacy Data Repository - Tobacco | |
|---|---|---|
| Documented fields | 16 | 10 |
| Period stamp | REF_DATE - reference year of the estimate (2012) | TimeDim - integer reference year of the observation (2022) |
| Geography | GEO - Canada or a named province/territory, with DGUID geographic identifier | SpatialDim - ISO3 country code (MYS), with ParentLocation giving the WHO region |
| Series descriptor | NAICS wholesale industry with bracketed code (Cigarette and tobacco product merchant wholesalers [4133]) plus Financial estimates measure name | IndicatorCode - short code distinguishing modeled estimates (M_Est_tob_curr) from MPOWER components (TOBACCO_MPOWER_*) |
| Measured value | VALUE in Dollars or Percent, with UOM and SCALAR_FACTOR stating units and scale | NumericValue point estimate with Low/High uncertainty bounds, plus Value string formatted with interval |
| Segment dimension | None beyond industry and geography - the table has no population subgroup axis | Dim1Type / Dim1 - typically SEX with male, female or both-sexes values |
| Provenance columns | STATUS quality flags, SYMBOL footnotes, TERMINATED markers, DECIMALS precision | — |
What each does better
the StatCan wholesale trade table
It publishes the P&L, not just the sales line. Revenue alone tells you a channel is big; Table 20-10-0077-01 tells you what survived it. No prevalence survey produces a margin structure.
The tobacco channel is a standing member, not a footnote. Cigarette and tobacco product merchant wholesalers [4133] reports alongside food, beverage, pharmaceutical, motor vehicle and other 4-digit wholesaler industries, so distribution economics for the category read directly off the table - revenue, COGS, wages, expenses, margins - without mapping an external classification first.
Provinces stand as their own rows. Ontario and Quebec are separate observations rather than dissolving into an aggregate, which makes provincial margin comparisons a filter rather than a reconciliation project. Thirteen geographies crossed with the NAICS hierarchy and six measures is where the ~39,000 rows come from.
Thirteen years of stable definition. Reference years 2012 through 2024 under one methodology, successor to the long-running CANSIM series, with a persistent DOI behind every figure and quality flags marking preliminary values. For citation-grade work that wants an audited national statistic, this record scores 9/10 in Datadory's rubric.
the WHO Global Health Observatory tobacco collection
It covers the world; the Canadian table covers thirteen rows of geography. Every WHO member state - 194+ countries - sits under one ISO3 code set, including small markets no commercial panel bothers to sell. Regional and global aggregates ride along, so a single indicator family spans both a global map and a country league table.
The Canadian table has nothing to say about any of these - its consumers never appear in its rows.
Sex as a first-class dimension. Observations carry male, female or both-sexes splits, so prevalence modeling by demographic is a column filter rather than a separate acquisition.
It is the well most other sources draw from. Most World Bank tobacco series trace back to this observatory, so figures that look familiar on a bank dashboard resolve here - and the record still scores 8 out of 10 against the catalog average, earned by breadth-with-structure rather than raw volume.
Or take both in one feed
Yes - WHO supplies the demand weather, StatCan supplies the channel's books.
A first-pass workflow: rank markets by modeled prevalence trend and MPOWER tax posture from the observatory side, then test what that pressure does to distribution economics using Table 20-10-0077-01 - watching whether cigarette and tobacco product wholesalers' gross margin holds, compresses or migrates toward adjacent categories as prevalence falls and taxes rise. Falling prevalence with stable margins suggests pass-through; falling margins against stable prevalence suggests competitive squeeze.
Three cautions from the pair. First, there is no join key: bridge the sides deliberately, since one speaks NAICS-plus-province and the other speaks ISO3-plus-indicator, and only Canada sits in both vocabularies. Second, respect the registers - WHO mixes modeled prevalence with scored policy statuses while StatCan separates dollar measures from percent ratios via its unit column, so aggregate each side before joining or the categories drown. Third, mind the cadence gap: annual against annual sounds symmetric, but WHO temporal depth varies indicator by indicator while the Canadian table runs a fixed 2012-2024 window.
Or take both in one feed: Datadory delivers them next to the rest of the tobacco catalog, normalized to one schema, delivered daily, weekly, or hourly - your call.
API, files, or your warehouse. Daily, weekly, or hourly.
Fair questions
Do StatCan wholesale estimates and WHO tobacco data cover the same thing?
Only the industry name. The Canadian table describes distributors - firms that buy and resell - so consumers never appear in its rows. The WHO collection describes populations and policies, so no firm appears anywhere in it. They share a period-geography-series-value structure and almost nothing else.
Which dataset covers more geography?
WHO GHO, decisively: 194+ member states plus regional and global aggregates under one ISO3 code set. The StatCan table covers thirteen geography members - Canada plus ten provinces and three territories - but compensates with depth, carrying full financial statements per industry-province-year rather than a single percentage per country.
Can I combine StatCan wholesale trade data with WHO tobacco prevalence data?
Yes - WHO supplies the demand signal, StatCan the channel response. Rank markets by prevalence trend and MPOWER tax posture, then check whether Canadian tobacco wholesalers' gross margin holds or compresses. There is no shared join key, so bridge the sides deliberately and remember only Canada sits in both vocabularies.
Which goes further back in time, StatCan or WHO GHO tobacco?
StatCan runs a fixed window: annual reference years 2012 through 2024 under one stable definition, successor to the older CANSIM series. WHO GHO varies indicator by indicator - modeled prevalence reaches the 2022-2023 estimates while MPOWER policy carries each measure's latest reporting round - so depth must be checked per series.
Can I get both StatCan and WHO tobacco data from Datadory?
Yes - sample both and pick by fit, or take both in one feed. Datadory normalizes each to its documented field dictionary, attaches sample rows for validation, and ships them alongside the rest of the tobacco catalog, delivered daily, weekly, or hourly - your call.