Estimation of the number of COVID-19 cases in Quebec

Description of the monitoring study

The Institut national de santé publique du Québec (INSPQ), in partnership with the ministère de la Santé et des Services sociaux (MSSS), is conducting a project to estimate the number of COVID-19 cases in the population.

For the past two years, the COVID-19 pandemic has been raging worldwide and in Quebec. With the arrival of new variants, as well as due to the lack of availability of health care personnel and medical equipment, the capacity of testing centers has been exceeded and PCR tests are no longer offered to every Quebecers. Although rapid tests are available, people with COVID-19 symptoms do not always use them for various reasons. As a result, it is difficult to measure the number of new cases, i.e. the incidence of COVID-19 in Quebec. Thus, the INSPQ has launched this study to test a statistical estimation method, inspired by work recently carried out by the Centre interuniversitaire de recherche en analyse des organisations (CIRANO), to better assess the number of cases in the province.

Objective

Your responses will be used to estimate the number of COVID-19 cases among the Quebec population. This monitoring study could be repeated in the coming weeks and used as a tool to monitor the evolution of the pandemic.

Selection of participants

The names of 30,000 people aged 18 and over were randomly selected from Clic Santé database. These individuals were invited to participate in the study by email. If you have received an email invitation, you have been randomly selected to participate. The selected potential participants have up to 7 days to complete the survey. The survey questionnaire can be accessed by clicking on the link provided in the email (you will then be directed to the Voxco website (voxco.com)).

As mentioned, the contact information required for this study was obtained from the MSSS using the Clic Santé database. Clic Santé database is the platform used to make appointments for COVID-19 vaccination. Access to this database is made possible under the legal mandate of the National Director of Public Health regarding monitoring of COVID-19. Only a few INSPQ employees have access to this database for the sole purpose of selecting individuals for this study and for data analysis. These employees must follow strict rules of confidentiality and protection of personal information. All have signed an agreement as part of their professional responsibilities.

If the questionnaire is not addressed to you

Invitations are sent to the e-mail address registered in the Clic Santé file of the individuals that were selected. If the person named in the email invitation is not yourself, for example if you have made the vaccination appointment for another person, please forward the invitation to the person named in the email if he or she is able to answer the questionnaire online. It is important that the person named and selected in the email as potential participants have been selected to ensure a representative population.

The importance of your participation

Your participation in the monitoring study is voluntary, but it is important to participate as it will allow the MSSS to follow the evolution of the pandemic.

Reminder message

If you have not answered this short questionnaire within 2 days of the first mailing, a reminder message will be sent to you automatically. Again, you are free to respond.

Confidentiality and consent

Your participation and responses will be kept strictly confidential. It will be impossible to identify you as an individual participant in the analysis and publication of the results. 

Your participation is free and voluntary. You may stop answering the questionnaire without any negative consequences. By completing the questionnaire, you consent to participate in this monitoring study.

Use of the data

The data collected will be processed by statistical methods to estimate the number of cases of COVID-19 in Quebec. Your email address, your phone number and your name will be stored on secure servers at INSPQ. Your name will not be mentioned in any report or publication. The results of this study will be used solely for health monitoring purposes.

Dissemination of results

Since August 24th, 2022, the results of these surveys are published on the INSPQ website and an update is scheduled on a weekly basis every Wednesday. You can access these results by clicking on the following link: https://www.inspq.qc.ca/covid-19/donnees/estimation-sondage

Thank you for your collaboration.