Canadian Digital Health Survey

Understanding Canadians' experiences with digital health

Study Objectives

Infoway has been tracking specific aspects of digital health awareness, use, and perceptions among Canadians annually since 2010. The 2021 Canadian Digital Health Survey for Citizens is based on a variety of specific system utilization and attitudinal tracking metrics.

The core research objective of the survey is to update and trend current understanding of Canadians’ attitudes, utilization, perceptions, and expectations regarding digital health services in Canada. The results of this study will provide actionable insights to help advise Infoway on a variety of business initiatives, including education and/or engagement initiatives.

Specific objectives of the study are to assess:

  • Digital health landscape in Canada: demand for and use of health services in Canada, and digital literacy of Canadians
  • Virtual care services: use and perceptions
  • Electronic personal health information, e-mental health services & other digitally-enabled health services: use and perceptions
  • Environmental sustainability: awareness of impact on healthcare and virtual care on greenhouse gas emission, level of concern, and willingness to use virtual

Methodology

Leger - the largest Canadian-owned polling and marketing research firm – conducted this web survey with 12,052 Canadians over the age of 16, selected from LEO’s (Leger Opinion) representative panel via Computer-Assisted Web Interviewing technology (CAWI).

The LEO (Leger Opinion) panel is the largest Canadian panel with nearly 500,000 representative panelists from all regions of Canada. LEO was created by Leger based on a representative Canadian sample of Canadian citizens with Internet access. Leo's panelists were randomly selected (RDD), panelists from more hard-to-reach target groups were also added to the panel through targeted recruitment campaigns. The double-opt-in selection process, a model to detect fraud and the renewal of 25% of the panel each year ensures complete respondent quality.

The results presented in this study comply with the public opinion research standards and disclosure requirements of CRIC (the Canadian research and insights council) and the global ESOMAR network.

Interpretation of Data

Privacy: Data visualizations do not allow for filtering of data where sample sizes are smaller than 30 respondents in order to preserve respondent anonymity.

Rounding Error: The data presented have been rounded. As a result, totals may differ slightly from 100%