Information for Survey Participants

The 2023 NYC Health Survey is a survey of randomly selected adult New Yorkers. The survey helps the Health Department:

• Track the health of New Yorkers
• Guide health program decisions
• Understand the relationship between behaviors and health status
• Support health policy positions

The survey provides health estimates on a broad range of chronic diseases and behavioral risk factors. Households are randomly selected from a list of all residential addresses in NYC.

Households with children under 18 may be eligible to take an alternate Health Department survey.

Participating in Health Department surveys helps the city better meet the needs of you and your household.

Answering the Survey — First Time Participants

Your household was randomly chosen to participate in this important study to improve the health of New Yorkers and help us learn about your neighborhood. The survey should be completed by the adult (18 or older) in your household who will have the next birthday. This will help to ensure we have a diverse group of respondents.

If you completed the Community Health Survey in 2022, and agreed to take the survey again, we may contact you to complete the survey in 2023. Only people that agreed to be participate in the survey again will be contacted.

In addition to completing the survey by web, you can also take the survey by phone or on paper. If you want to take the survey on paper or over the phone, call the toll-free line at 833-574-3096 and provide your user ID. You can call Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., or Saturday through Sunday, 12 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Please review the instructions in your invitation letter to ensure that the correct person in your household completes the survey.

The survey usually takes about 25 minutes, but you can take as much time as you need to complete.

Answering the Survey — Returning Participants

If you took an earlier Health Department survey and agreed to take future surveys, you may have been contacted to complete this health survey.

In addition to completing the survey by web, you can also take the survey by phone or on paper. If you want to take the survey on paper or over the phone, call the toll-free line at 833-574-3096 and provide your user ID. You can call Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., or Saturday through Sunday, 12 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Please review the instructions in your invitation letter to ensure that the correct person in your household completes the survey.

Privacy and Rights

All information that you provide is confidential and will be handled in a secure manner.

When you agree to provide your address or cross streets, you provide the Health Department with the tools to better understand your neighborhood and community members. Your personal information is not available to the public and cannot be linked back to your survey responses. Your survey responses will be grouped with the information provided by other New Yorkers in your area to provide a snapshot of the health of NYC adults.

In appreciation for the time you’ve taken to complete our survey, we will provide you with a gift card.

A research firm called Abt Associates collects data for the health department. Abt Associates processes all mail from for this project out of its Cambridge, Massachusetts office.

To speak to a survey manager overseeing these projects at the Health Department, call 347-396-2805.

To learn more about your rights as a study participant, call 347-396-6118.

Additional Resources

• Frequently Asked Questions (PDF)

Healthy NYC is a group of New Yorkers who will complete health surveys periodically. Participants will be invited to complete as many as 10 surveys in a year.

The surveys are intended to help the Health Department better understand the health needs of New Yorkers. Participants' answers will help the Health Department design better policies and programs.

Invitations to join Healthy NYC were sent to households in which someone previously completed a Health Department survey and agreed to be contacted again for future research. Other addresses that received invitations were selected at random from a list of all New York City addresses.

All participant information is confidential. Research documents are kept on password-protected computers and accessed by a limited number of people. This project has been reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board, which is responsible for protecting the rights of study participants.

For more information about the survey, call 888-692-0023 or email HealthyNYC@health.nyc.gov.

• About Healthy NYC (PDF)
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• May 2023 Women's Reproductive Health Survey

The NYC Health Opinion Poll surveys 1,200 randomly selected adult New Yorkers to measure:

• Awareness, acceptance and use (or barriers to use) of Health Department programs.
• Knowledge, opinions and attitudes about health care.
• Opinions about public events that are related to health.

Participants in the Healthy NYC project will be randomly invited to complete Health Opinion Poll surveys. Your responses in the poll will help the Health Department develop policies and programs that better meet the needs of all New Yorkers. Each poll is expected to take 10 minutes to complete.

All information that you provide is confidential and will be handled in a secure manner. You do not have to answer any question that you do not wish to answer.

If you have any questions about the survey content or how the data will be used, email nychop@health.nyc.gov.

• Health Opinion Poll: Information to Invitees

We are no longer accepting blood samples for the NYC Serosurvey. Please do not mail any new completed blood sample kits back to the NYC Health Department or Wadsworth Center, the NYS Public Health Laboratory. Thank you, NYC Serosurvey participants!

Case counts do not tell us the true number of NYC residents who have been infected with the virus that causes COVID-19. COVID-19 serosurveys collect and test blood samples from a randomly chosen group of people to estimate the percent of people who have antibodies against the virus. Antibodies are a type of protein made by the body after an infection or after vaccination. If antibodies to the virus that causes COVID-19 are present in someone’s blood it is likely that they were infected with this virus at some point in the past, even if they did not have symptoms, or that they have been vaccinated against the virus.

Our bodies produce several types of antibodies. The tests used by the NYC Serosurvey look for two types of antibodies. They look for nucleocapsid antibodies, which our bodies make after we are exposed to a virus. They also look for spike protein antibodies, which are made after vaccination and after getting sick.

The NYC Serosurvey collects and tests blood samples from a random group of NYC residents who participated in the NYC Community Health Survey or Healthy NYC. Blood samples are tested for COVID-19 antibodies at the Wadsworth Center, the New York State Laboratory.

Information from the NYC Serosurvey is used to help understand how many people in NYC have antibodies to the virus that causes COVID-19. Results are combined with responses from the COVID-19 Population Health Survey to determine if people who test positive for COVID-19 antibodies had COVID-19 symptoms, or if certain age groups, race groups or other groups of people, were more likely than others to be infected with the virus. This information helps the city plan the delivery of public health services to its residents, which is why your participation is so important.

NYC Serosurvey participants will be mailed a kit to be used to collect their blood samples. The kit we use is called the Mitra Blood Sample Self-Collection Kit. Only the person who took the Community Health Survey should collect a blood sample for the NYC Serosurvey.

Your results are confidential and will only be released to the team conducting this serosurvey, and city and state public health agencies. If you do not want to collect a blood sample, it will not affect any benefits you or your family get from any government agency.

Once you have collected your blood sample, return the sample to the lab using the pre-addressed, pre-paid envelope provided with your kit. If you lose your envelope, or have a problem with your kit, contact the study team using the information at the bottom of this webpage. You will receive a $30 gift card for collecting a blood sample and mailing it to the laboratory. Please be advised that we are no longer accepting completed blood sample collection kits for the NYC Serosurvey.

If you have questions about the NYC Serosurvey, visit the NYC COVID-19 Surveys website or contact the serosurvey team at NYCSerosurvey@health.nyc.gov or by phone at 347-396-4202.