The Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) is conducted by Statistics Canada. The survey provides cross-sectional (at one point in time) estimates of the factors related to health status, health care utilization and health determinants for the Canadian population. The survey contains questions on a wide range of health topics, including: physical activity, height and weight, smoking, exposure to secondhand smoke, alcohol consumption, general health, chronic health conditions, injuries, use of health care services and related socio-demographic information. The target population of the CCHS includes household residents in all provinces and territories, with the exclusion of populations on Indian Reserves, Canadian Forces Bases, and some remote areas.
The 2015 CCHS release introduced major changes in the design and collection of the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS). Notably, there have been changes to the questionnaire, sampling frame, the weighting, and guidelines for data release and suppression. Due to the change highlighted above, no comparisons should be made to previous CCHS releases for any variables. For some pages trends may be presented from 2003 to 2014 to provide a historical perspective on the indicator; however, these will not be directly comparable to data from 2015 onward. As new data becomes available, new time-series trends will be produced.
CCHS data reported on this website were obtained using the Ontario Share File provided to health units by the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care. The Ontario Share File has a slightly smaller sample size than the Master File and Public Use Micro File (PUMF). This is because respondents must agree to share their information with the province to be included in the Share File.