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LOCATION: Third Floor, Harriet Irving Library

National Population Health Survey

1994 NPHS | 1996 NPHS | 1998 NPHS

The following files are available for use within the constraints of the DLI license to UNB Libraries users.

The National Population and Health Survey (NPHS) was designed to collect information related to the health of the Canadian population. The first cycle of data collection began in 1994, and will continue every second year thereafter. The first three survey cycles produced cross-sectional data files as well as contributing to a longitudinal file that will follow a panel of respondents over a twenty year period. The survey focuses on various health related topics including:

(1) activity limitations and chronic health conditions.
(2) health status of residents of health care institutions
(3) persons with disabilities
(4) the Canadian health status index.

All the public use microdata files from the 1994/95 NPHS, 1996/97 NPHS and 1998/98 NPHS are now available. There is also a synthetic file available for those wishing to use NPHS Remote Access to obtain analysis of the master file and who are not eligible for Research Data Centre access. Please email the DLI Contact for further information on using the synthetic file.

National Population Health Survey, 1994/95

The target population consisted of Canadian household population, all ages, excluding natives on reserves. Basic information was gathered from approximately 22,000 households (the General File) and, in addition, one person aged 12+ from each household was randomly selected for a more in-depth interview (the Health File).

The documentation for the 1994/95 NPHS is provided as a PDF file and requires Adobe Acrobat to read it. The documentation is fairly extensive; a print copy is available for consultation in the Government Documents, Data and Maps Department, 3rd Floor of the Harriet Irving Library.


In addition to the content of the main NPHS, Health Canada sponsored a set of supplementary questions on six subjects. The topics covered were nutrition, safety and accident prevention, smoking, breast-feeding, alcohol use during pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases and use of health care services.

As well, NPHS includes a survey of health institutions.

Which file should you use?

  • The Health file contains detailed information about a selected person in a household. There are 17,626 records in this file. The respondents to the Health survey will form part of the panel which will be tracked over time through the NPHS.
  • The General file contains information about the people in a household. There are 58,439 records in this file, representing the various members of households surveyed.
  • The supplement file contains information about a sample of the respondents to the Health file. There are 13,400 records, including all the variables in the Health file plus variables dealing with the six supplementary subjects.
  • The health institutions file contains information about residents in nursing homes and health care institutions. There are 2,624 records in this file.

Go to: Health file | General file | Supplement | Institutions

NPHS General Survey: Files Available

This survey collected information at the household level, capturing information on the members of the household and allowing for proxy responses. There are 58,439 records in the General File. The documentation for using this file is provided in the NPHS 94/95 User's Guide

NPHS Health Survey: Files Available

This survey collected information at the individual level, capturing information on a single member of the household and including detailed information about health. There are 17,626 records in the Health file, and variables cover the Alberta and Manitoba Buy-In questions as well as the NPHS questions. The documentation for using this file is provided in the NPHS 94/95 User's Guide

NPHS Supplement:

Health Canada sponsored a content buy-in to the National Population Health Survey 1994/1995. The buy-in was collected as a supplementary survey for selected persons aged 12+ who were part of the core NPHS sample. The supplements were not collected for the sample buy-ins which were done in some provinces and they were not collected for the Yukon or NWT. The NPHS supplements cover a variety of topics including nutrition, smoking, injury prevention and safety, breast feeding, consumption of alcohol and other drugs. There are 2,287 records in the file. The documentation for using this file is provided in several components:

NPHS 94/95 Supplement: Data File

National Population Health Survey: Health Institutions, 1994/95

A special component of the program is a survey designed for people living in health care institutions, including hospitals, nursing homes, and residential facilities for persons with disabilities. This microdata file contains data collected in 1995 from 2287 long-term residents of health care institutions in the provinces. The documentation for using this file is provided below:

Data Files:

* * *

National Population Health Survey, 1996/97

With the National Population Health Survey, 1996/97, the sample from the NPHS 94 has been topped up. Of the original 17,276 respondents of the 1994/95 NPHS, 15,819 responded in 1996, with 62 moving into institutional settings and 1108 non-respondents.

The 1996/97 General File consists of 210,377 respondents, including 165,938 respondents added for the buy-in questions. The 1996/97 Health File consists of 81,804 respondents, including 66,123 respondents added for the buy-in questions. The cross-sectional file available to UNB/STU faculty, students, and researchers under the DLI license, includes the buy-in sample; the longitudinal file will not include these respondents. Researchers wishing to use the longitudinal files will be working with Research Data Centres or by "remote access" provided by Statistics Canada. The latter is an iterative method which will permit screening of results by Statistics Canada to protect respondent confidentiality.

Files currently available include:

NPHS 96/97 Documentation

Data Files: Health File

Data Files: General File

National Population Health Survey: Health Institutions, 1996/97

* * *

National Population Health Survey, 1998/99

There are several changes to the NPHS content, which are discussed in the documentation. The questions of social support have been amended, the 1996 Alberta supplement has been dropped, and Preventive Health measures are grouped together again (as for the 1994 survey questionnaire). A special focus content for this cycle is family medical history. There are 49,046 cases in the Household file, and 17,244 cases in the Health file.

Print documentation is available for this survey; ask at the Government Documents, Data and Maps Dept. on the 3rd floor, Harriet Irving Library building.

Files currently available include:

Documentation

Data Files: Health Survey
  • NPHS 1998, General Component, SPSS .sav file
  • NPHS 1998, General Component, STATA file
  • NPHS 1998, Health Component, data file
  • NPHS 1998, Health Component SPSS command file

Data Files: Household Survey

  • NPHS 1998, General Component, SPSS .sav file
  • NPHS 1998, General Component, STATA file
  • NPHS 1998, General Component, data file
  • NPHS 1998, General Component SPSS command file

Document maintained by:
Government Documents, Data and Maps Department
E-mail address: Hamilton@unb.ca
Last update: 01/08/21

This document http://www.lib.unb.ca/gddm/data/NPHS.html