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StatsCan looking for fresh blood
Agency plans door-to-door hunt to get samples for health survey
By CP
THE NEXT time a Statistics Canada pollster knocks at the door he may be out for blood. The federal agency plans to collect blood and urine samples from volunteers beginning next year in a radical departure from its usual question-and-answer checklist approach.
The $20-million project would involve a battery of lab tests on up to 10,000 Canadians. Researchers would look for diabetes, cholesterol levels, lead, pesticides, SARS, HIV, herpes, the West Nile virus and many other health measures.
The survey would also include measurements of weight, which people tend to underestimate when answering pollsters' questions, blood pressure, fitness, back strength and many others.
The urine and blood samples -- and possibly saliva samples -- may also be stored for years so tests that yet to be developed can be performed later.
'VERY IMPORTANT'
"There's enormous potential for this to inform policy at all kinds of levels," says Mark Tremblay, one of the directors of the four-year project known as the Canadian Health Measures Survey. "It's very, very important."
The last such national survey in Canada was carried out in 1978-79, but many other countries have routinely collected bodily fluids for testing, including Britain, New Zealand, Australia and some European countries.
The U.S. runs the most sophisticated program, which determined among other things that the American population had high blood levels of lead. The finding was instrumental in getting lead additives banned from gasoline.
And in the late 1980s, Australia's national survey discovered that the number of diabetics was double previous estimates based on questionnaires.
"For every known case of diabetes there, they had an unknown case," says Tremblay. "So their estimates based on self-reporting health questionnaires ... were off by 100%.
"And so you can imagine the importance of that in terms of projecting future health care costs, demands for services, etc."
Such fluid-sample surveys also record statistics for healthy individuals -- who frequently don't appear in medical records of hospitals and doctors -- allowing statisticians to analyze healthy habits.
YOU WON'T BE PAID
Participants for the Canadian survey would be volunteers who are representative of the general population in terms of age, sex and other demographic factors. Residents of Native reserves, members of the military and people residing in institutions, such as prisons, will be excluded.
The samples are to be gathered in clinical settings, such as a mobile clinic, and participants would not receive payment, though they will be reimbursed for any out-of-pocket expenses, such as travel.
The amount of blood extracted would be between 50 and 80 ml, or about one-tenth of the amount taken during a blood donation. Results of the tests would be shared with each individual.
A pilot project is to be carried out next year, with full sampling expected in 2006, perhaps following the scheduled Canada-wide census that year.
Tremblay cautions that planning is still tentative.
"There are a lot of complicated features to this, and details to iron out."
For one, the project needs the approval of Canada's privacy commissioner, as well as privacy officials in the provinces.
Agency plans door-to-door hunt to get samples for health survey
By CP
THE NEXT time a Statistics Canada pollster knocks at the door he may be out for blood. The federal agency plans to collect blood and urine samples from volunteers beginning next year in a radical departure from its usual question-and-answer checklist approach.
The $20-million project would involve a battery of lab tests on up to 10,000 Canadians. Researchers would look for diabetes, cholesterol levels, lead, pesticides, SARS, HIV, herpes, the West Nile virus and many other health measures.
The survey would also include measurements of weight, which people tend to underestimate when answering pollsters' questions, blood pressure, fitness, back strength and many others.
The urine and blood samples -- and possibly saliva samples -- may also be stored for years so tests that yet to be developed can be performed later.
'VERY IMPORTANT'
"There's enormous potential for this to inform policy at all kinds of levels," says Mark Tremblay, one of the directors of the four-year project known as the Canadian Health Measures Survey. "It's very, very important."
The last such national survey in Canada was carried out in 1978-79, but many other countries have routinely collected bodily fluids for testing, including Britain, New Zealand, Australia and some European countries.
The U.S. runs the most sophisticated program, which determined among other things that the American population had high blood levels of lead. The finding was instrumental in getting lead additives banned from gasoline.
And in the late 1980s, Australia's national survey discovered that the number of diabetics was double previous estimates based on questionnaires.
"For every known case of diabetes there, they had an unknown case," says Tremblay. "So their estimates based on self-reporting health questionnaires ... were off by 100%.
"And so you can imagine the importance of that in terms of projecting future health care costs, demands for services, etc."
Such fluid-sample surveys also record statistics for healthy individuals -- who frequently don't appear in medical records of hospitals and doctors -- allowing statisticians to analyze healthy habits.
YOU WON'T BE PAID
Participants for the Canadian survey would be volunteers who are representative of the general population in terms of age, sex and other demographic factors. Residents of Native reserves, members of the military and people residing in institutions, such as prisons, will be excluded.
The samples are to be gathered in clinical settings, such as a mobile clinic, and participants would not receive payment, though they will be reimbursed for any out-of-pocket expenses, such as travel.
The amount of blood extracted would be between 50 and 80 ml, or about one-tenth of the amount taken during a blood donation. Results of the tests would be shared with each individual.
A pilot project is to be carried out next year, with full sampling expected in 2006, perhaps following the scheduled Canada-wide census that year.
Tremblay cautions that planning is still tentative.
"There are a lot of complicated features to this, and details to iron out."
For one, the project needs the approval of Canada's privacy commissioner, as well as privacy officials in the provinces.
