Study: Differences in the concerns of Canadians with respect to the COVID-19 pandemic
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Released: 2020-05-13
Canadians' concerns about COVID-19 have evolved since the onset of the pandemic, from near-universal concern about health-related issues in early April, to an increased concern about the social impact later in the month.
These findings are from a new study based on the responses of almost 200,000 Canadians who answered a crowdsourcing questionnaire about COVID-19 from April 3 to April 9, 2020. An additional 50,000 answered the same questionnaire from April 10 and April 25. The study highlights the changes in the perceptions of Canadians with respect to COVID-19 over this period.
Over the course of just one week, significant differences were found in the perceptions of crowdsourcing participants. Specifically, later participants (78%)—that is, second- and third-week participants—were less likely to be "very" or "extremely" concerned about overloading the health system compared with first-week participants (88%).
Later participants were slightly more concerned than first-week participants about certain social factors, such as family stress from confinement (37% versus 35%), maintaining social ties (37% versus 34%) and the possibility of violence in the home (11% versus 8%). Youth remained more likely than older participants to be concerned about family stress and violence in the home.
For the most part, there were little differences in precautions taken by participants between those who answered in the first week and those who answered in the second and third weeks.
The study "Differences in the concerns of Canadians with respect to the COVID-19 pandemic" is now available.
Note to readers
Data in this release are from Statistics Canada's crowdsourcing Impacts of COVID-19 on Canadians: Data Collection Series. The crowdsourcing questionnaire collects data on the current economic and social situation, as well as on people's physical and mental health, to effectively assess the needs of communities and implement suitable support measures during and after the pandemic. This alternative method of collecting information can be used to supplement data obtained from more traditional sources, particularly due to its relatively low implementation cost and ability to increase the granularity of data in a timely manner. Readers should note that unlike other surveys conducted by Statistics Canada, crowdsourcing data are not collected under a design using a probability-based sampling. As a result, the findings reported in this study cannot be applied to the overall Canadian population. Over the next few weeks, new crowdsourcing initiatives will be launched to get timely information about other important issues, such as the extent to which COVID-19 is affecting the lives and well-being of different groups of Canadians. Canadians are invited to keep coming to the website in order to participate.
Products
The study "Differences in the concerns of Canadians with respect to the COVID-19 pandemic" is now available as part of the series StatCan COVID-19: Data to Insights for a Better Canada (45280001).
Contact information
For more information, or to enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact us (toll-free 1-800-263-1136; 514-283-8300; STATCAN.infostats-infostats.STATCAN@canada.ca) or Media Relations (613-951-4636; STATCAN.mediahotline-ligneinfomedias.STATCAN@canada.ca).
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