In short
Sciensano organises the Prevention Barometer to identify various factors that influence our health behaviours. After all, a healthy lifestyle has a positive influence on our health. The following types of questions are, among others, addressed:
- How do inhabitants deal with nutrition?
- Do they experience social pressure to drink alcohol?
- And what do they think about campaigns concerning cancer screening?
The Flemish Government uses the results of the survey to improve its preventive health policy. Prevention contributes to a higher quality of life and a longer healthy life for the inhabitants of Flanders.
Project description
Sciensano organised the Prevention Barometer for the first time in 2022. This is a cross-sectional study that can potentially be repeated in time. We aim to assess:
- the knowledge and skills in the Flemish population regarding health, prevention and health promotion
- the attitude of the Flemish population towards the prevention and health promotion policy
- the intentions to change health behaviours in the Flemish population
- a limited number of (environmental) determinants that are related to (not) changing unhealthy behaviours in the Flemish population.
The questionnaire is subdivided into different modules and focuses on:
- alcohol use
- cannabis use
- smoking
- exercise
- sedentary behaviour
- eating behaviour
- mental health
- sexual health
- population screening for cancer.
The survey focuses on inhabitants of the Flemish Region of at least 18 years old, regardless of their nationality, health behaviours or any other characteristic. For this purpose, we draw a random sample from the national register. Selected people receive an invitation letter by postal mail to participate online to the Prevention Barometer. If they do not complete the online questionnaire after this invitation, they receive a reminder letter including a paper questionnaire. The aim is to have at least 3,000 people participating in this survey.
Results
The reports of the Prevention Barometer are only available in Dutch. You can find the reports and infographics on the Dutch language project page.
