Canada's response to the COVID-19 pandemic is continually guided by the latest science, evidence and research. To that end, the Government of Canada is actively working with a community of national and international experts to gather evidence on the health impacts of the pandemic, as well as potential long-term effects of the virus.
To do this, the Government of Canada is launching a second cycle of the Canadian COVID-19 Antibody and Health Survey (CCAHS). This national survey, led by Statistics Canada, the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) and the COVID-19 Immunity Task Force (CITF), aims to better understand the impacts of the pandemic on the health and well-being of Canadians, including the prevalence of chronic symptoms and conditions and the challenges that Canadians may have faced in accessing healthcare.
The development of this survey will estimate the prevalence of post COVID-19 condition (commonly known as long COVID) in Canada, and will provide information on the risk factors, symptoms and impacts of this condition on daily functioning.
Across all ten provinces, 100,000 randomly selected Canadians aged 18 years and older will have received invitations from Statistics Canada to participate in the survey. Over the course of the first week of April, the first 33,000 selected Canadians will receive a kit in the mail. Among the items inside is a link to the online survey with questions related to their general health, any chronic symptoms and conditions, their COVID-19 history and related symptoms, vaccination status, interactions with the healthcare system and medication use.
In addition to the invitations to complete the online survey, respondents will be provided with dried blood spot (DBS) test kits, with step-by-step instructions, to test for COVID-19 antibodies. These DBS tests will be used to estimate the number of Canadian adults who have infection-acquired and/or vaccine-induced antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19). Respondents who choose to conduct the DBS test component will receive a personalized report of their results.
Canadians aged 18 years and over will be randomly selected from Canadian households to create a representative sample and ensure that the results are generalizable to the Canadian adult population. Individuals who do not receive an invitation to participate in the survey cannot volunteer for the study.
