Canadian Health Survey on Children and Youth (CHSCY)

Detailed information for 2024

The Canadian Health Survey on Children and Youth (CHSCY) aims to provide important insights on the health and well-being of Canadian children and youth. The survey covers various topics such as mental health, access to a primary health care provider and care needs. The CHSCY also collects information on long-term conditions and substance use.

The information collected will provide a better understanding of the health care needs of children and youth and will be used to measure how health care is delivered across Canada. The data collected will also help policy makers and health researchers monitor Canadian children's health over time. People who are selected to complete the survey are asked to share their experiences and perceptions in complete confidentiality.

Data release - September 29, 2025 (Shared Health Priorities), November 24, 2025 (Main release)

• Questionnaire(s) and reporting guide(s)
• Description
• Data sources and methodology
• Data accuracy

Description

The main objectives of the Canadian Health Survey on Children and Youth (CHSCY) are to:

- offer young people the opportunity to share their experiences, in complete confidentiality, to reflect a true picture of what affects their health and well-being today
- provide insights on issues impacting the physical and mental health of children and youth
- monitor health trends based on sociodemographic information
- support health surveillance programs by providing health data at the national, provincial, and territorial levels
- allow researchers from various fields to use the data to conduct research into the various factors that affect the health and well-being of children and youth in Canada
- the CHSCY is collecting data to report on selected Shared Health Priority indicators

The data collected will be used by Statistics Canada, Health Canada, the Public Health Agency of Canada, and provincial and territorial ministries of health, as well as by other federal and provincial departments.

The information collected from respondents will be used to monitor, plan, implement and evaluate programs to improve the health of Canadian children and youth. Researchers from various fields are also interested in the survey data and will use the information to conduct research into the various factors that affect the health and well-being of children and youth in Canada.

Subjects

• Children and youth
• Health
• Health and well-being (youth)
• Health care services
• Risk behaviours

Data sources and methodology

Target population

The 2024 CHSCY covers the population aged 1 to 17 years old, as of August 31, 2024, living in the 10 provinces and 3 territories. Excluded from the survey's coverage are children and youth living on First Nations reserves and other Indigenous settlements in the provinces, children and youth living in foster homes and not eligible for the Canada child benefit (CCB), and the institutionalized population.

Instrument design

The survey content was developed based on consultations across Canada with key experts and federal and provincial stakeholders. The goal of the consultations was to provide advice to Statistics Canada on what survey content would be relevant for programs and policies and to fill data gaps related to children and youth.

Qualitative testing by Statistics Canada's Questionnaire Design Resource Centre, was conducted in December 2023 and March 2024, using face-to-face interviews and focus groups.

Sampling

This is a sample survey with a cross-sectional design.

The sampling units are children and youth aged 1 to 17 years as of August 31, 2024.

Sample size and allocation
The CHSCY used a sampling list frame created from the CCB files. The sample file was stratified by age and geography, with a random sample of units selected from each geography and age group stratum.

For the territories, two years are required to produce representative estimates, as only half of the communities were included in the 2024 sample. Children and youth living in the capitals are collected in both the 2024 and 2025 collection periods. Please note that data collected in 2024 and 2025 for children and youth living in the territories will be available only when the combined data for 2024 and 2025 are released in 2026.

The sample size is 63,000 raw units sent to collection (60,000 in the provinces and 3,000 in the territories).

Sample design
The survey frame is stratified by province or territory and for three age groups: children aged 1 to 4 years old, children aged 5 to 11 years old, and youth aged 12 to 17 years old.

Data sources

Data collection for this reference period: 2024-10-01 to 2025-03-20

Responding to this survey is voluntary.

Data are collected directly from survey respondents.

Respondents are given an opportunity to complete the questionnaire online using an electronic questionnaire. The survey includes a questionnaire to be completed by the parents or legal guardians of the children, as well as a questionnaire for the children themselves, for those aged 12 to 17. If an electronic questionnaire is not completed in the first month of collection, a Statistics Canada interviewer will call and ask the respondent to complete the questionnaire over the telephone. In the territories, interviews in regions outside the capital cities will be mainly conducted using computer-assisted personal interviewing.

View the Questionnaire(s) and reporting guide(s) .

Error detection

Some editing of the data is performed at the time of the interview within the electronic questionnaire. The questionnaire has built-in checks for some out-of-range or extreme values that prompt respondents and interviewers to verify the recorded answer. Flow errors are controlled in the application through programmed skip patterns. For example, questions that do not apply to the respondent are not asked.

Imputation

Concepts related to total family income were not asked of respondents for this cycle of the CHSCY. These income concepts were instead appended to the file from administrative sources for respondents who did not object to this process and for whom the process was possible. For the other respondents, total family income and some related variables were imputed using donor imputation. The imputation was done based on geography (dissemination area, postal code or census subdivision), grouped household size, and expected income group. Income was imputed for just over 1% of respondents on the master file.

Estimation

For estimates produced from survey data to be applicable to the covered population, and not just the sample itself, users must incorporate the survey weights in their calculations. A survey weight is given to each respondent included in the final sample. This weight corresponds to the number of persons in the entire population that are represented by the respondent.

As described in the sampling section, the 2024 CHSCY uses the CCB as a frame for its sample selection. From this frame, initial weights are calculated for each sampled child. These weights then undergo several adjustments, including an adjustment for nonresponse and a calibration to projected population totals, to create the final weights.

In 2024, an additional set of survey weights was produced for the master file that accounts for partial submissions for sampled 12 to 17 year-old youth where the parent or legal guardian completed their portion of the questionnaire but the youth did not.

The sample design used for this survey was not self-weighting. That is to say, the sampling weights are not identical for all individuals in the sample. When producing simple estimates, including the production of ordinary statistical tables, users must apply the proper sampling weight.

The steps for weighting are described in the CHSCY User Guide.

Initial bootstrap weights are created through resampling the original sample. Adjustment steps, similar to those applied to the survey weights, are then applied sequentially to the initial bootstrap weights to compute the final bootstrap weights.

Estimates of the number of people with a certain characteristic are obtained from the data file by summing the final weights of all records possessing the characteristic of interest. Proportions and ratios are obtained by summing the final weights of records having the characteristic of the numerator and the denominator and then dividing the first estimate by the second.

Estimates involving any data point reported by a 12 to 17 year-old youth should use the survey and bootstrap weights that do not account for the partial 12 to 17 year-old submissions. All other estimates should use the survey and bootstrap weights that do account for the partial submissions, as they are based on a larger data set and are therefore more precise.

Quality evaluation

After the 2024 data were compiled, the data were reviewed in terms of the accuracy, coherence and overall reasonableness. A variety of indicators were calculated from the 2024 data and compared with the 2023 CHSCY (cross-sectional component) data, the annual 2022 Canadian Community Health Survey data and other health surveys. Any statistical differences were reviewed, considering the differences between the surveys (population, collection methods, measurement scale, etc.). Weighted demographic frequencies were also compared against the 2021 Census as a validation.

Disclosure control

Statistics Canada is prohibited by law from releasing any information it collects which could identify any person, business, or organization, unless consent has been given by the respondent or as permitted by the Statistics Act. Various confidentiality rules are applied to all data that are released or published to prevent the publication or disclosure of any information deemed confidential. If necessary, data are suppressed to prevent direct or residual disclosure of identifiable data.

Revisions and seasonal adjustment

This methodology type does not apply to this statistical program.

Data accuracy

As the data are based on a sample of persons, they are subject to sampling error. That is, estimates based on a sample will vary from sample to sample, and typically they will be different from the results that would have been obtained from a complete census. Precise estimates of the sampling variability of survey estimates can be produced with the bootstrap method, using bootstrap weights that have been created for this survey.

NON-SAMPLING ERROR:
Common sources of these errors are imperfect coverage and non-response.

Coverage errors (or imperfect coverage) arise when there are differences between the target population and the surveyed population. Data for people without telephones and mailable addresses were not collected as we had no way to contact them. To the extent that the excluded population differs from the rest of the target population, the results may be biased.

Non-response could occur at two points in this survey. For all sampled units, the parent or legal guardian could have chosen to not participate. For those parents or legal guardians of 12 to 17 year-olds who did participate (and, for parents or legal guardians of 12 to 14 year-olds, consented to the participation of their children), it is possible that their children chose to not participate. Two sets of survey weights were developed to allow for the use of partial 12 to 17 year-old submissions, and both of these sets of weights were adjusted to account for patterns of non-response.

Other types of non-sampling errors can include response errors and processing errors.

NON-RESPONSE BIAS:
The main method used to reduce nonresponse bias involved a series of adjustments to the survey weights to account for nonresponse as much as possible. Information was extracted from administrative sources and used to model and adjust nonresponse.

COVERAGE ERROR:
The CHSCY used a sampling list frame created from the CCB files. The CCB files contain a list of all program beneficiaries with their names, addresses and phone numbers. This list was used to directly select the children and youth. All respondents in the 10 provinces were interviewed by telephone or completed an electronic questionnaire without interviewer assistance. Data for people with neither a mailing address nor an associated telephone number were not collected, as they could not be contacted by any of the survey collection modes. Also, in cases where multiple children were selected from a single dwelling, a subsampling step was added to select only one of these children for collection to reduce response burden. The weights of units sent to collection were adjusted to account for these withheld units.

OTHER NON-SAMPLING ERRORS:
Throughout the collection process, control and monitoring measures were put in place and corrective action was taken to minimize non-sampling errors. These measures included response rate evaluation, reported and non-reported data evaluation, improved collection tools for interviewers, follow-up with non-respondents and others.