COVID-19 Survey

The B.C. COVID-19 SPEAK Survey is now open. Take the survey and tell us how you are doing and help B.C. recover.

Last year, almost 400,000 British Columbians took the time to participate in a public health survey. We called it BC COVID-19 SPEAK: Your story, our future and it provided valuable information about how British Columbians experienced the first wave of the pandemic.

We are now launching BC COVID-19 SPEAK Round 2. We’re over a year into the pandemic and once again we are asking you to tell us how you are doing. It’s been a tough year and everyone has been impacted in different ways. With COVID-19 vaccinations underway, it is time to think about our recovery and how we can support you through this next phase.

The survey will address four key areas:

Life during the pandemic: How your behaviours and experiences have changed over the course of the pandemic
Vaccines: What barriers exist to accessing vaccines
Innovation and adaptation: How have things changed around you and how have these changes impacted you?
Recovery: What supports are needed to help you through our recovery from the pandemic?

Please use the latest web browsers for optimal experience. The survey will be open for about four weeks.

Take the survey | 参加问卷调查
ਸਰਵੇ ਭਰੋ | Participez au sondage

Answers to frequently asked questions about the survey can be found below.

Language guides are available:

American Sign Language language guide

Go to ASL video playlist

About the survey

The survey is open to all British Columbians 18 years of age and older.
The survey takes 20-30 minutes and can be done online on any tablet, computer or mobile device.

Help the people in your life to participate

If you know someone who may have difficulty accessing or using a computer, open the survey via the link above, give them a call, and go through all the questions, inputting their answers into the online survey on their behalf. We need your help to prepare for B.C.’s future, and every voice counts.

Protecting your privacy

Safeguards are in place to ensure your privacy. Data collected in the COVID-19 survey follows strict privacy practices under the B.C. Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. The act governs how your information is collected, who sees it and how the information is used. Read the complete privacy statement.

What happens after I complete the survey?

Results will be made available in the early summer. If you agreed to participate in further research, you will be contacted directly via email.

Help promote the survey!

Funding support

We are grateful to the BCCDC Foundation for Public Health for its financial support of this survey.

Questions?

Send your questions about the survey to covid19.speak@bccdc.ca

Frequently Asked Questions

I filled out my survey but I made a mistake! How can I fix this?

If the mistake that you made was to your PHN, your email address, or your phone number, you do not need to change it; so long as your email address or your phone is correct, we will be able to contact you if needed and information can be corrected at that time.

If your email address AND your phone number are incorrect, please retake the survey so we will have a way to contact you in the future. After you retake the survey and input your answers again, send us an email at covid19.speak@bccdc.ca to let us know that you redid the survey. We can search for duplicates and delete the earlier entry, and keep the latest entry with the correct information.

Why are you asking about ethnicity and income in a health survey?

We ask about socio-demographic questions (like education, income, and ethnicity) to ensure all segments of our population are properly represented based on available census data and in recognition that many experiences of health and well-being are highly influenced by our backgrounds and circumstances. This information ensures planning is relevant and responsive to the needs of our diverse population.

Why are you asking for my Personal Health Number (PHN)?

At the end of the survey, you are asked for your Personal Health Number (“PHN”), which can be found on your BC Services Card, BC Driver’s license, or your CareCard.

Providing your PHN will help to make more meaningful population level data analysis by linking your responses to other administrative health databases to better understand healthcare use, guide health planning and recovery from the pandemic.

Your PHN is kept separate from any other identifiable information.

How were the questions in the survey developed?

The BC COVID-19 SPEAK survey questions have been drawn from validated sources where possible such as Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS), national and international COVID-19 Population Health Surveys including specific tools from Statistics Canada and the World Health Organization, and the national Census. The survey was developed through extensive consultation with stakeholders and partners across British Columbia.

BCCDC website is saying it is not secure. Is my personal information at risk?

No. We take website security seriously. Visitors to our site who are reading or downloading documents will not encounter any additional security risk.

The content on the BCCDC is public, non-personalized information. To take the survey, you will be directed to the UBC Qualtrics tool, which provides a secure platform for capturing and saving data.

Is the information that I provide on the UBC Qualtrics survey tool then stored in the U.S.?

No. Qualtrics specifically configured the UBC instance to save all data to Canadian servers. Specifically, the survey information collected using this tool is stored in Toronto, Ontario and backed up in Montreal, Quebec.

My experience did not fit in all the boxes on the survey. I don’t feel that my story was fully represented. What can I do?

COVID-19 affects so many aspects of our lives, and has made difficult situations even more difficult to bear. The COVID-19 SPEAK Survey is now part of a series of surveys and work that examine the impacts of COVID-19.

We value your feedback, and you can email us at covid19.speak@bccdc.ca to ensure your full story is taken into consideration in the development of future work.

What types of research projects may I be asked to participate in if I indicate I am interested?

The continuing global spread of COVID-19 requires ongoing public health surveillance and response activities into the coming months and years. Understanding the unintended impacts on the social, economic, physical health, mental wellness and resiliency of communities is important for British Columbia’s response and recovery. By providing your contact details including your PHN, meaningful population level analysis can be done by linking your responses to administrative health databases to better understand healthcare use and guide health system planning and recovery from the pandemic.

Providing your contact information does not automatically enrol you in research opportunities to help with recovery from the pandemic. You will be contacted and then you can choose if you would like to participate.

Was COVID-19 serology (antibody testing) done after the first survey with participants who indicated their interest and will there be antibody testing after this survey?

Many survey respondents were interested in taking part in COVID-19 serology after participating in the BC COVID-19 SPEAK survey in 2020. In the months after the survey was closed, research and other evidence showed that one per cent or less of the B.C. population experienced a COVID-19 infection during the first wave. This meant, the vast majority of the population had no immune protection against COVID-19 and pursuing population-level serology testing at that time was not a good use of resources.

Antibody or serology testing, which involves taking a blood test to determine whether you had COVID-19 in the past, is not part of this year’s survey.

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Where can I find the results from the first survey?

Results from the first survey, BC COVID-19 SPEAK: Your story, our future, are available on the B.C. COVID-19 SPEAK Survey Dashboard. The dashboard is an interactive tool that provides insights into the experiences of British Columbians during the first wave of the pandemic. Results are available at a regional or community level on healthcare, social and economic impacts, behaviour changes, risk factors, resilience and more.

How have the results from the first survey been used by public health?

The data has been used by Public Health, government and community stakeholders in government to inform different public health guidance. For example the return to in-class learning for K-12 schools was a priority where we learned three in four households with children reported impaired learning and decreased social connections, which can have lifelong impacts.