Survey 2017 Frequently Asked Questions

Survey 2023 will collect valuable information about your health and lifestyle, as well as information about the long-term impacts of COVID-19. This will include employment and income, sleep patterns, mental health, medical history, medication use, family health history, and risk factors (including alcohol, tobacco, e-cigarette and cannabis use).

This will help make ATP data more valuable for researchers and help inform life-changing research studies that will impact cancer and chronic disease diagnosis, treatment, prevention and outcomes for generations to come.

Your participation is very important!

Survey 2023 and the Diet and Physical Activity Survey will include questions covering the following areas:

• Demographics
• Health and lifestyle practices
• Cancer and cancer screening
• Family health history
• Ongoing impact of COVID-19
• Female and male reproductive health
• Non-prescription medication usage
• Supplement usage
• Quality of life
• Mental health
• Social support
• Stress
• Sleep
• Alcohol consumption
• Smoking and tobacco habits
• Cannabis usage
• Body measurements
• Cell-phone usage
• Sun exposure
• Occupation
• Diet
• Physical Activity

This survey will gather valuable health and lifestyle data, including information about the long-term effects of COVID-19, which will support research on the diagnosis, treatment, and outcomes of cancer and other chronic diseases.  As a longitudinal study cohort, the information you provide on surveys will enable researchers to look at changes over time and how the changes relate to your health.  We understand the time commitment it takes to complete these surveys, however please know that your contributions help to influence the health of generations to come.

It can be difficult to remember events that occurred in the past as well as the accurate timing of when they occurred.  It is also difficult to provide the exact same information on multiple different surveys over the years.  As time progresses, the accurate recollection of details starts to get more difficult.  Errors resulting from this is called ‘recall bias’.

It is much easier to accurately remember recent events and the timing of when they occurred.

For this reason, we identified a number of questions on Survey 2023 that we have asked on a previous survey (Survey 2017).

• • If a participant completed Survey 2017, we will only ask ‘in the last 5 years’ which will make it easier for the participant.  This should help to reduce recall bias.
  • If a participant didn’t complete Survey 2017, they will be asked ‘at any point in the past’.

The same questions are sent to all ATP participants for the purpose of standardizing our results.  Although some of these questions do not apply to you, they may apply to other participants.  As life circumstances change with time, a question that doesn’t apply to you today may apply to you several years in the future when we launch a new health and lifestyle survey.

This is the value of repeat collection of health and lifestyle information at different time-points over the years.

‘Sex’ and ‘gender’ are terms that are often used interchangeably but they have different meanings.  Both aspects can have an impact on health.

Sex is assigned at birth.  It is usually female or male.  This does not change.

Gender identity is related to how individuals define, experience, and express their gender.  It is not confined to a binary woman/man categorization.  Instead, it exists on a continuum and can change with time.

Please note there is a ‘Prefer not to answer’ option on the survey.

Canadian Institutes of Health Research. (2020, April, 28). What is gender? What is sex? Retrieved April 28, 2023, from https://cihr-irsc.gc.ca/e/48642.html

Your blood type (A, B, AB, or O) is determined by the types of antigens and antibodies that are on your red blood cells. These may influence your immune system response, and therefore your blood type and immune system may play a role in how susceptible you are to different illnesses.

Taking the extra steps to look up your standard 5-digit National Occupation Code (NOC) to enter into Survey 2023 will make it more efficient for us to provide accurate and standardized occupation data to researchers.

In the past, we have asked participants to type or write out their job titles on surveys.  These entries can be highly variable and require a great deal of data cleaning and coding from the ATP team to get them ready for researchers.

We appreciate you taking the extra steps to provide accurate occupation information for Survey 2023.

If you have already started Survey 2023, you can log back into the ATP Participant Portal by going to myatphub.ca or by referring to the link in the Survey 2023 email invitation you received from ATP.

In the ATP Participant Portal, look for surveys available to complete in the “NOTIFICATIONS” pane.  The survey will resume where you left off.

It is very difficult to go into surveys to change responses after the survey has been submitted.  If there is something you strongly wish to change, please email us with this information and we will see if this can be accommodated.

Our email is: tomorrow@ahs.ca