Looking for a way to engage your community?
Building on the success of our national and provincial indices, the CIW has developed a survey for measuring the subjective wellbeing of Canadians. The survey process uses the CIW framework – incorporating all eight domains – an approach unique to most other wellbeing surveys and research programs.
Guelph, Ontario. The location of our first survey (2012). Photo credit: Wei Wong
Adaptable to any population scale, the survey asks randomly selected members of a community, age 16 and older, a range of questions to indicate how they are really doing with respect to aspects of each domain and wellbeing overall. The survey allows for comparisons among domains, assesses the extent to which perceptions of wellbeing in one domain are linked to that of another, and clearly identifies areas where members feel wellbeing can be enhanced.
A wellbeing survey approach is useful in small locations where local indicator data are sparse and in communities that wish to use both the subset of CIW national indicators available at the community level, and citizen perceptions to more fully understand their community's wellbeing. There are also endless opportunities to customize for other applications such as corporate wellbeing surveys; intake questionnaires at health centres; post-secondary institution wellbeing surveys of students, staff, and faculty.
For more information on community wellbeing surveys completed to date, refer to the City of Guelph, Kingston, Waterloo Region, Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo, Victoria, and Oxford County.
For more information on custom applications of our survey, refer to Alliance for Healthier Communities (formerly the Association of Community Health Centres or AOHC).
Interested in conducting a Wellbeing Survey in your community or for another purpose? Contact us to find out more.