Adapting to Emerging Health Information Needs with the Canadian Community Health Survey

• Activity Number: 160
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Monday, August 9, 2004 : 2:00 PM to 3:50 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Survey Research Methods
• Author(s): Marc Hamel*+ and Yves Béland and Johane Dufour
• Companies: Statistics Canada and Statistics Canada and Statistics Canada
• Keywords: health surveys ; sampling approaches ; collection methodology ; cross-sectional

Abstract

The need for health information is more critical than ever in Canada, with the ageing of the population and the anticipated increased demand for health care services. Statistics Canada launched the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) in 2000 to fill many of the data gaps in health information. The CCHS survey program, consisting of two cross-sectional surveys conducted over a two-year repeating cycle, has been designed to address priority health information needs at regional, provincial, and national levels. The survey also allows for the study of special populations such as immigrants, seniors, children, and others. An important distinctive feature of the CCHS is its flexibility to respond and adapt to emerging health information needs. During the course of the first two cycles of the CCHS, the survey program has had to adapt to requests for additional health-related information for smaller levels of geography than originally designed for. This paper will describe how the CCHS survey program has adapted its collection methodology, sampling approaches, questionnaire content, and data outputs to respond to those numerous requests while maintaining high quality standards.