The impact of COVID-19 on the health of the Belgians: Sciensano calls upon you!

Are you 16 years or older and living in Belgium? Then complete our questionnaire before 9 April 2020. This takes only 15 minutes of your time and your participation really makes a difference.

The objectives of the survey

The COVID-19 health interview survey aims at supporting policymakers by assessing the impact of the coronavirus crisis on: 

• our physical, mental and social wellbeing;
• our use of health services.

The COVID-19 health interview survey also deals with other factors important to policymakers and scientists, such as:

• the sources of information consulted by the population;
• the implementation of the hygiene and confinement measures.

Our study will be organized in several phases, with the launch of a new online questionnaire every two weeks. Each questionnaire will cover specific public health topics of concern in this crisis. The study starts on Thursday 2 April with the launch of the first questionnaire. The second questionnaire will be launched on Thursday 16 April and will focus on the impact of the coronavirus crisis on health related behaviors (diet, physical activity, alcohol and tobacco consumption, etc.). At the appropriate time, you will be invited to participate in the second phase of our study.

Why participate?

1. The wide scope of this study
The COVID-19 health interview survey covers a wide range of health topics. Different dimensions of health are assessed, with a particular focus on the mental and the social health of the population. In addition, changes in our use of health services and in our health related behaviors are evaluated, including questions such as “Are we postponing a doctor’s visit because of the coronavirus crisis?” or “Are we currently smoking more than before the crisis?”. 

2. A reference study since 1997
Since 1997, the national health interview survey is organized by researchers of Sciensano every 4 to 5 years. This survey is the reference for health authorities and health professionals. Through their expertise, our researchers can assess whether our health, our health related behaviors and our use of health services have changed during this crisis period, compared with the figures of the national interview health survey of 2018. In order to make this comparison, we used as much as possible the same sets of questions in both studies.

3. Informing our policymakers
The purpose of this study is to inform our policymakers. They need to be aware of the impact of the coronavirus crisis on the health of the Belgians and it is important that they are informed of how the population deals with the large amount of information they are receiving: “To what extent does the population have confidence in the government?”, “Through which sources do they get their information about the situation?”, “Is the population complying with the hygiene and confinement measures?”,….

Who intiated this study?

Sciensano researchers led by Dr. Karin De Ridder and Stefaan Demarest. If you would like additional information or if you experience a technical problem, you can always contact us! 

⇒ The survey is available in 4 languages:

Version française
Nederlandstalige versie
English version
Deutsche Ausgabe