Survey on Health Care Access and Experiences - Primary, Emergency and Hospital Care (SHCAE-PEHC)
Detailed information for January to June 2026
Status:
Active
Frequency:
One Time
Record number:
5429
The purpose of the SHCAE-PEHC is to better understand how Canadians navigate the health care system, including challenges or barriers they may face.
Description
The survey covers topics such as access to and experiences with primary health care, emergency room care, hospital care, unmet health care needs, prescription costs, and insurance coverage.
Survey results may help Health Canada, the Public Health Agency of Canada, and provincial ministries of health in making informed decisions about the delivery of health care services and in developing and improving health care programs and policies to better serve the Canadian population.
Reference period: Varies according to the question (for example: "in the past 12 months", "the most recent time", etc.)
Collection period: January to June 2026
Subjects
- Health
- Health care services
Data sources and methodology
Target population
The target population for the SHCAE-PEHC is all people 18 years of age or older living in private residences in the ten provinces of Canada. Excluded are people living in dwellings located on reserves, full-time members (Regular or Reserve Force) of the Canadian Armed Forces and their household members and people living in collective dwellings, such as institutions.
Instrument design
The content for the SHCAE-PEHC electronic questionnaire was drafted in consultation with the Public Health Agency of Canada, Health Canada and the Canadian Institute for Health Information.
The questionnaire underwent cognitive testing in the form of in-depth interviews in both of Canada's official languages, conducted by Statistics Canada's Questionnaire Design Resource Centre. The goal of the qualitative study was to test the survey content.
The questionnaire follows standard practices and wording used in a computer-assisted interviewing environment, such as the automatic control of flows that depend upon answers to earlier questions and the use of edits to check for logical inconsistencies and capture errors. The computer application for data collection was tested extensively.
Sampling
This is a sample survey with a cross-sectional design.
The SHCAE-PEHC sample has a stratified two-stage design. A random sample of private dwellings is selected in each of the ten provinces. In each sampled dwelling, one person is selected from among all residents aged 18 years or older.
At the first stage, the sampling unit is a dwelling. At the second stage, the sampling unit is a person.
Stratification of dwellings is done by province and by the expected number of dwelling residents aged 18 years or older.
A sample of 67,300 dwellings is selected probabilistically according to the stratified design. Within each dwelling, one person is selected at random to respond to the survey.
Data sources
Data collection for this reference period: January 05, 2026 to June 07, 2026
Responding to this survey is voluntary.
Data are collected directly from survey respondents and extracted from administrative files.
Data are collected from survey respondents either through an electronic questionnaire directly online or assisted by a Statistics Canada interviewer through computer assisted telephone interviewing. A letter is mailed to the selected dwelling, which contains a code that gives access to the online questionnaire.
A Statistics Canada interviewer may follow up by calling, emailing, or texting the respondent if a completed online questionnaire is not received within a certain period of time.
Proxy reporting (when a selected respondent is unable to answer for themselves) is allowed, although certain questions may be skipped.
The questionnaire is available in both official languages and can be completed by interview in either English or French. To remove language as a barrier to conducting interviews, each of the Statistics Canada regional offices recruited interviewers with a wide range of language competencies. When necessary, cases are transferred to an interviewer with the language competency needed to complete an interview. The average time to complete the survey is 35 minutes.
The information collected during the 2026 SHCAE-PEHC will be linked to the personal tax records of respondents and tax records of all household members. Household information (address, postal code, and telephone number), the respondent's information (social insurance number, surname, name, date of birth and age, and sex) and information on other members of the household (surname, name, age, sex and relationship to respondent) are key variables for the linkage.
Respondents are notified of the planned linkage before and during the survey. Any respondents who object to the linkage of their data have their objections recorded, and no linkage to their tax data takes place. Income information obtained from income tax records will also be provided to provincial share partners but only with respondent consent.
View the Questionnaire(s) and reporting guide(s) .
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