Canadian Community Health Survey, 2013-2014: Annual Component

The CCHS is a cross-sectional survey that collects information related to health status, health care utilization and health determinants for the Canadian population. It relies upon a large sample of respondents and is designed to provide reliable estimates at the health region level. The CCHS has the following objectives:</br> <ul> <li> Support health surveillance programs by providing health data at the national, provincial and intra-provincial levels; </li> <li> Provide a single data source for health research on small populations and rare characteristics; </li> <li>Timely release of information easily accessible to a diverse community of users; </li> <li>Create a flexible survey instrument that includes a rapid response option to address emerging issues related to the health of the population.</li> </ul> Since 2007, data for the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) are collected yearly instead of every two years. While a sample of approximately 130,000 respondents were interviewed during the reference periods of 2001, 2003 and 2005, the sample size was changed to 65,000 respondents each year starting in 2007. </br></br> The CCHS produces an annual microdata file and a file combining two years of data. The CCHS collection years can also be combined by users to examine populations or rare characteristics. The 2013-2014 master and PUMF files only contain optional content data for modules that were asked in both years, which applies to the vast majority of optional content data