Aboriginal Peoples Survey

The cross-sectional design of the survey means the study can identify associations but cannot establish causation. The survey used complex multiple-phase stratified random sampling, with weights supplied by Statistics Canada to adjust for design effects. The 2017 Aboriginal Peoples Survey achieved a response rate of 70.1% from a sample of 34,176 people. The analytic sample included 9,115 First Nations respondents living off-reserve, representing a weighted population of 482,066 people. The survey excluded First Nations people living on-reserve, in institutions, and in precarious housing, which may have caused underestimation of prevalence. Cultural framing of pain and disability may have produced non-differential misclassification, potentially weakening measured associations.