RRFSS E-News: Fall 2020

Health Unit Spotlight: Durham Region Health Department

Durham Region Health Department was one of the original members to pilot RRFSS in 2003 and continues to innovate using RRFSS including biometrics and mapping neighbourhood level health data. Below they describe their latest tool…“The RRFSS Data Explorer provides an easy way to access and visualize important information collected in RRFSS: https://rrfss.durham.ca/. The tool showcases RRFSS data collected from Durham Region residents across five categories: age, gender, income, municipality and trends over time. This way, you can see the differences in health behaviours and knowledge that exist between groups of people. The website was built in-house by our health analyst, James Lane, using open source web applications. It is AODA compliant and is a great tool for us at Durham to showcase our RRFSS data to the public.”

RRFSS launches its new on-line data collection!

The Institute for Social Research is partnering with firms that can provide samples of Ontarians (online panel members) to complete the RRFSS survey online. The two main advantages to this mode of data collection are speed and cost. It allows RRFSS members to have access to preliminary data sooner than the telephone data and in addition the cost is much lower than the traditional RRFSS telephone survey. Typical response rates for online panels range from 20-35% (which is in the same range as the RRFSS telephone response rates). Ottawa Public health used this method for a survey on COVID-19 this summer and obtained a 30% response rate. 

New COVID-19 RRFSS data available!

RRFSS is developing over 12 new COVID-19 related modules that will be available in Fall 2020 through the new RRFSS on-line survey. These include:

 Children

 Concerns

 Precautions (Distancing and Face coverings)

 Employment

 Financial Impacts

 Food Security

 Handwashing

 Information Sources

 PHU Response

 Health Services

 Health Impacts

 Symptoms and Testing

Vaccine Readiness

There is still time for health units to join RRFSS in Fall 2020–so don’t delay!