The Health Care and Social Assistance industry includes services that provide health care, residential care for medical or social reasons, and social assistance.
Health care establishments provide care for individuals who seek services for prevention, diagnosis or treatment from health care professionals, including doctors, lab technicians, dentists, optometrists and chiropractors.
Social assistance includes services such as child protection, home care, welfare, counselling, social housing and food services, and child care.
It is difficult to separate the social assistance occupations from health care occupations because many of the services provided by each are interconnected.