Public Opinion Research

Health Canada conducts public opinion research to help shape policy and program development and social marketing campaigns.

Public opinion research is used in social marketing:

• Prior to a campaign to help set realistic objectives and learn more about target audiences;
• During campaign development, where focus testing of campaign elements ensures that campaign materials will be relevant to the target audience; and
• After campaigns are launched to measure the effectiveness of social marketing campaigns.

Best Practices

In this section you will find "mini-issue papers," developed by Health Canada's Public Opinion Research and Evaluation Division. These papers highlight the best practices, which have emerged from Health Canada's research on:

• Web site testing;
• Evaluations of print advertisements; and
• Evaluations of other print media.

The papers are based on direct feedback from Canadians and provide valuable information for the development of effective websites, publications and other communications products.