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Table 2
Comparison of the characteristics of national health surveys

Table 2
Comparison of the characteristics of national health surveys
Table summary
This table displays the results of Comparison of the characteristics of national health surveys Canadian Community Health Survey, National Health Interview Survey and Scottish Health Survey (appearing as column headers).
	Canadian Community Health Survey	National Health Interview Survey	Scottish Health Survey
Country and population size^{Table 2 Note 1}	Canada, 37.6 million residents	United States of America, 329 million	Scotland, 5.3 million
Primary purpose	Support national, provincial and intraprovincial health surveillance	Support national health surveillance and track progress toward achieving national health objectives	Support national health surveillance, mainly for cardiovascular disease and associated risk factors
Survey design	Cross-sectional household interview survey	Cross-sectional household interview survey	Cross-sectional household interview survey
Administration history	Biennially from 2001 and annually from 2008	Annually from 1957	1995, 1998 and 2003, and then annually from 2008
Content	Health status, heath care utilization and health determinants	Health status, heath care utilization and health determinants	Health status, heath care utilization, health determinants and biological measurements
Target population	Non-institutionalized Canadians 12 years of age and older	Non-institutionalized population of the United States	Persons living in private households in Scotland
Exclusions	Persons living on reserves, full-time members of the Canadian Forces, the institutionalized population and residents of certain remote regions	Persons in long-term care facilities, on active duty with the Armed Forces and in prison, and U.S. nationals living in foreign countries	Persons not living in private households and residents of certain remote islands
Sampling methods	Multistage area-based probability sampling	Multistage area-based probability sampling	Multistage stratified clustered probability sampling
Administration methods	Computer-assisted personal interviews (CAPI) and computer-assisted telephone interviews	Personal household interviews using CAPI	Personal household interviews using CAPI
Survey length	Approximately 45 minutes	Approximately 60 minutes	Approximately 60 minutes
Modules	Core content + province-specific optional modules + rapid response content	Core content + co-sponsored supplementary questions	Core content + rotating biennial modules since 2008 + biological module from a subsample
Sample size	Approximately 130,000 respondents per cycle from 2001 to 2006; approximately 65,000 respondents annually since 2007	Approximately 30,000 adult respondents annually since 1997	Approximately 7,000 adult respondents per survey until 2011; approximately 4,500 adults annually since 2011
Small-area geographies	Powered to produce estimates for 110 health regions every two years	Selected estimates may be reliable at the state level with data combinations from several survey years	Powered to produce estimates for 14 health boards every four years since 2008
Response rates	81% in 2003; 76% in 2008	72% in 2000; 69% in 2005	55% to 60% from 2003 to 2010
Available linkages	Mortality and health administrative data including hospitalizations	Mortality data	Mortality and health administrative data including hospitalizations
Note 1 Estimated population size in 2019. Return to note 1 referrer Source: Documentation for the Canadian Community Health Survey, United States National Health Interview Survey and the Scottish Health Survey.

Date modified:: 2020-07-29