Everyday life and health survey 

VQS

The Everyday Life and Health Survey (VQS) focuses on the living conditions of people (no matter their age), on their difficulties in performing the various activities of their everyday life and on the care they receive.
The goals of this survey are to have a better understanding of the health of French citizens, to have information on each French department and to build the sampling frame of the Autonomie survey in ordinary dwellings (provided in 2022).
The short format of the VQS survey provides the possibility of a large sample, which can easily meet a goal of representativeness for all departments, allowing comparisons between the territories. The results of the survey will help the local actors, who fund benefits related to disabilities and loss of autonomy, to have information about their territories. For the first time, results will also be produced for Mayotte.
The Everyday Life and Health Survey (VQS) is a "filter survey" in order to prepare the sample for an in-depth survey on disabilities and dependency, the Autonomie Survey.
People with disabilities or dependent people are relatively rare among the general population: in 2008, about 10 % of people aged 16 years or older and living at home were very limited in everyday activities because of a health problem (source : HSM survey). It is therefore important to be able to over-represent them in the sample of a survey that focuses on their characteristics and their situations in order to produce satisfactory and robust results.
The VQS survey thus consists in sending a short questionnaire to a large number of households. Based on the responses to this questionnaire, people are separated into four disability groups, built according to the level of disability in everyday life activities. These groups are then used to build the sampling strata for the Autonomie survey. People with the most difficulties are most likely to be drawn at random than others, in order to set detailed statistics on the population of people they represent.

The VQS survey was conducted for the first time in 1999, prior to the Handicap-Disabilities-Dependency survey; then in 2007, prior to the Handicap-Health survey; and in 2014, prior to the Capabilities, Resources and Care for the Elderly survey.
In 1999, the survey was collected at the same time as the population census. The census enumerator dropped the questionnaire at the same time as the population census ballots, and then he picked them up together.
In 2007, the questionnaire was sent by post service, except for the French Overseas Departments oversamples, for which it was collected by an interviewer. The households that did not answer this mailing were dunned.
Half the households answered after this mailing phase. The others were reached and then investigated face to face or by phone.
In 2014, following the debates about dependency, the survey only took place for people aged 60 years or older. The questionnaire was available online and mailed. A telephone reminder was set up in a third phase.

Survey

Directorate of Research, Studies, Evaluation and Statistics

Punctual or aperiodic