HEAL and CHARM studies

Diet and physical activity are cornerstones of health. The HEAL study will consider environmental characteristics, such as the types of food outlets close to you and how walkable your neighbourhood is, which can affect what you eat and your daily activities. Help us to collect data to better understand how environments can support healthy eating and physical activity in Canada.

We will ask you to complete several online surveys over a year, covering your diet, daily activities, health, and environmental factors. You will be invited for these surveys on timelines specific to your region.  If you’re unsure how to complete a questionnaire, refer to the ASA24 or ACT24 user guides for step-by-step support, or reach out to your region.

Data collection is happening now and will continue through 2027. You will be invited at different times based on your region. Initial data analysis will occur by 2028.

Your daily meals, drinks, and activities aren’t always the same. By reporting them at different points in time, you help us capture a more complete picture. There are also some things that we eat and activities that we do infrequently or seasonally, such as having barbecues in the summer or skiing in the winter. By asking you to report on your diet and activities in different ways and at different times, we capture various types of information and can get a more complete picture. Worried that what you report on one day is different from a typical day? That’s okay! We are asking you to report things on a few different days, so we get a better picture of what ‘usual’ is for you. You are also part of a group of thousands of diverse participants completing the HEAL study, and we want to know about what makes your diet and daily activities unique.

The data will be used to understand how the environment impact dietary intake, like stores selling healthy foods in your community, and how the food environment differs across Canada. The data will also be used to study how dietary intake and food environments, together, are influenced by other factors like the walkability of your neighbourhood, your physical activity, and other individual factors (e.g., employment). In the future, this data will help us understand the relationships between diet and physical activity and health outcomes, including chronic diseases like cancer or diabetes.

We know the ASA24 dietary questionnaire can feel long. That’s because it’s designed to give a very detailed picture of everything you ate and drank the prior day. To do this accurately, the system needs to ask follow-up questions about portion sizes, how foods were prepared, and what ingredients were included. For example, a sandwich can be made in many ways, with different breads, fillings, and condiments, and each version is different from a nutrition perspective. The extra questions help make sure we get it right.​ We’ve all heard “the devil is in the details,” and research will only be able to ask detailed questions about diet and cancer or chronic disease if they have this detailed data available to use.

Similarly, each person’s activity throughout the day is different, and the ACT24 questionnaire is designed to give a full picture of how you spent your day from when you woke up to when you went to bed. Things like walking the dog, watching TV, or doing chores are all important.​ We know your time is valuable, and we really appreciate you sticking with the questionnaires. Your responses help improve research on health and wellbeing for your generation and future generations too. Thank you!

The study’s results will be shared by the regions and CanPath through their websites, newsletters, publications, presentations, and social media. At the end of the study, you will receive a report summarizing the diet and physical activity information you provided.

Your blood can tell us a lot about your health. By looking at things like cholesterol and blood sugar, researchers can learn how what you eat and how individual characteristics, such as your gender, may affect your health. Also, blood samples allow researchers to look at thousands of small molecules that reflect what you eat and how your body uses food, for instance both of us could eat a banana, but the way our bodies processes that banana may be different.  

In short, your blood sample gives researchers the “inside story” of how food and health are connected – something we can’t see from questionnaires themselves.  

We ask for your blood samples within two weeks of your 24-hour dietary questionnaire because we want to connect what you’ve recently eaten with what we find in your blood. Food leaves “signals” – things like glucose, cholesterol, fatty acids, and other compounds – in your blood that don’t last very long. Collecting samples soon after your dietary recall helps researchers see the clearest picture of how what you eat can be linked to your health.  

Your sample will be:  

1. Tested in a lab for health markers like total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein (LDL; “bad”) cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein (HDL; “good”) cholesterol, triglycerides and glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c; average blood sugar).   

2. Tested to measure tiny molecules that give us a detailed picture of how what we eat can affect the body (metabolomics). 

3. Stored for future research approved by an ethics board.   

9 hours before your blood draw. For example, if your appointment is at 8:00 am, please stop eating at 11:00 pm the night before.  

No. Please do not drink coffee, chew gum, smoke, or vape before your blood test. These can affect your test results. You may only drink plain water during the fasting period before your appointment. 

The optional stool sample will be biobanked (stored in freezers) to allow future researchers to study the gut microbiome or the community of bacteria and other organisms that live in your digestive system. These microbes help with digestion, support your immune system, and affect your overall health. By looking at stool samples, researchers can learn what lives in your gut and how it may be linked to conditions such as cancer and other diseases.  

You will receive a stool collection kit with step-by-step instructions. This includes tools to collect your sample hygienically and safely. The kit includes a list of all items that should be in your kit. If anything is missing or you need a replacement kit, please contact your regional cohort.  

Do not refrigerate your stool sample. Your kit contains a special liquid that keeps the sample safe at room temperature until it is returned to the lab.  

Yes, of course! Please connect with your regional cohort to receive a copy.

Participating in this study is completely voluntary. Your participation in your region will not be affected based on whether you participate in the HEAL study. If, for any reason, you no longer wish to participate in the study, you may end your participation at any time. You can do this by notifying your region. You will remain a valued participant in your region going forward.

Like all data we collect from you, these data will be held by your region. CanPath will also have a de-identified copy, meaning it doesn’t contain your personal information, such as your name, date of birth and address. Researchers who wish to access the data will apply through the standard processes at your region and CanPath. Only approved investigators will have access to the data.

CanPath and its regions have built a solid data governance, protection, and security foundation. We have stringent application review processes and are committed to protecting participant data. The data will be hosted securely at your region, and CanPath will also hold a de-identified copy at the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research. In the future, these data will be securely hosted in CanPath’s trusted, cloud-based research environment.