Community Well-being Dashboard
Community Well-being Dashboard
The Community Well-being Dashboard (2025) is a collaborative project bringing together local organizations to share real-time data about key measures of community health and well-being in Prince Edward County. This resource is a central hub for tracking trends and supporting decisions that strengthen our community’s well-being, with data summaries for quick access to key insights.
Index of Well-being - Prince Edward County
The Community Well-Being (CWB) Index measures the socio-economic well-being of communities across Canada. It combines Census data on key indicators like education, employment, income, and housing to create an overall well-being score for each community.
In Prince Edward County, the Index shows that quality of life has been steadily improving, especially in income levels and educational attainment. However, these results may possibly be affected by the County’s changing demographics.
Source: Government of Canada
The dashboard offers data summaries. For details, visit Vital Signs - Population.
Overall population stability masks significant demographic change. With a median age of 56.1 in 2025—16.2 years above the Ontario average—Prince Edward County ranks among the province’s oldest communities. This is also the County’s fastest-growing age group, while the youth and working-age populations are shrinking. In-migration started to offset natural population decline after 2016, accelerated during the pandemic.
- 2023 income is an estimate during an intercensal year.
- After-tax income is the total of market income and government transfers, less income tax.
Income in Prince Edward County is characterized by moderate income inequality and lower-than-provincial average earnings. While job growth has been steady since 2016, the seasonal economy contributes to fewer full-time jobs and lower workforce participation than in Ontario overall. An aging population is shrinking the working-age population, while a higher rate of self-employment reflects the County’s entrepreneurial culture.
The dashboard offers data summaries. For details on Education including early development, visit Vital Signs - Education.
Adult educational attainment is rising, although changing demographics among new residents may be contributing to this trend. More students are graduating, but an achievement gap persists. Historically, HPEDSB graduation rates and Grade 3–10 reading, writing and math results have lagged behind provincial levels.
The dashboard offers data summaries. For details, visit Vital Signs - Environment and Protection of Farmland.
Prince Edward County is experiencing the early effects of climate change. The average temperature is expected to rise by approximately 2 to 3 degrees Celsius by 2050 if climate change is left unabated, resulting in more frequent extreme weather events and risk to humans, wildlife and agriculture.
Between 2006 and 2021, farmland in PEC decreased by 34,706 acres (24%), and cropland declined by 13,239 acres (14%).
The dashboard offers data summaries. For details, visit Vital Signs - Food Security.
Note: Use rates of food insecurity with caution as they are estimated. There are varying levels of food insecurity and methods of data collection, making comparisons difficult.
More than one in four households in the SE Health Area experience inadequate or insecure access to food due to financial constraints—an increase of nearly 60% since 2019, according to Public Health Ontario. Rising food prices add to the pressure, with food among the Consumer Price Index categories experiencing the largest price increases.
The dashboard offers data summaries. For details, visit Vital Signs - Health.
Perceived good health in Hastings Prince Edward (HPE) has declined steadily since 2018, while an aging population and higher rates of chronic disease contribute to greater health needs. Self-reported mental health started to decline in 2019/20. Pandemic-related lockdowns intensified a sense of isolation and disconnection, and people lost their sense of safety as well as certainty about the future, jobs and lives.
The dashboard offers data summaries. For details, visit Vital Signs - Housing.
Eastern Ontario, particularly rural communities, faces a growing housing shortage that is reducing affordable options and increasing pressure on the rental market. In Prince Edward County, household income rose just 38% from 2010 to 2020, while median home sale prices increased 135%. Limited rental supply adds to affordability pressures, with only 7% of housing built in rural municipalities over the past 25 years designated as rental.
The dashboard offers data summaries. For details, visit Vital Signs - Safety.
The severity of police-reported violent crime in Prince Edward County is lower than the Ontario average. However, 75–85% of police calls involve non-criminal incidents, highlighting the importance of community partnerships to address underlying social issues. Key policing challenges include intimate partner violence, fraud and impaired driving.
The dashboard offers data summaries. For details, visit Vital Signs - Transportation.
Prince Edward County’s rural geography presents transportation challenges, with 77% of residents living in rural areas and more than 1,000 km of roads to maintain across a low-density tax base. While 58% of residents work within the County and one-third commute less than 15 minutes, transportation remains a challenge for many residents. Since launching in 2020, County Transit has expanded its fixed-route, on-demand and specialized transit services, with ridership continuing to grow.
