Canadian Community Health Survey, 2012: Rapid response on food skills – knowledge, planning and transference of skills

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 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 Food Skill rapid response module was added to the CCHS Annual Component to collect specific information on the skills, knowledge, planning and the transference of skills of the Canadian population in general when it comes to preparing meals. The questions deal with collecting information on general eating habits, meal preparation, and the involvement of children in the meal preparation process, assessing the cooking skills, as well as grocery shopping habits. The addition of these questions to the CCHS was sponsored by the Office of Nutrition Policy and Promotion, Health Canada.