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: Support health surveillance programs by providing health data at the national, provincial and intra-provincial levels; Provide a single data source for health research on small populations and rare characteristics; Timely release of information easily accessible to a diverse community of users; Create a flexible survey instrument that includes a rapid response option to address emerging issues related to the health of the population. 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. 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