2024 marks the 27th anniversary of the Benefits Canada Healthcare Survey — Canada’s premier survey on workplace health benefits plans. Over the last 26 years, the report has captured the opinions of more than 39,000 Canadian members of group health benefits plans.
What makes this research extremely valuable is that the results are discussed and analyzed by an advisory board of industry experts, including benefits consultants, insurance companies and plan sponsors, providing key insights into what the data means for the industry. Over the next few months, we'll be sharing various sections of the survey.
This month we’ll cover Section 1 – Personal Health, Mental Health & Stressors
Overall Personal Health
- Nine in 10 (88%) plan members rated their health as excellent (13%), very good (28%) or good (47%) in the past year.
- Plan members who felt their employee benefits plan doesn’t meet their needs were also more likely to describe their health as poor (22%); however, this is an improvement over 2023 (32%).
Mental Health Remains a Top Concern
- 17% of plan members self-reported their mental health to be poor in 2024, comparable to 2023 (18%) and down slightly from 22% in 2022
- Self-assessed poor mental health was more likely among plan members with poor personal health (56%), with poor social health (49%), who are heavy users of mental health benefits (46%), and who rated their workplace health (44%) and work-life balance (41%) as poor.
Plan Member Stressors
- The percentage of plan members experiencing high to extreme stress on a typical day over the last three months spiked from 2022 (27%) to 2023 (38%) and remains elevated this year (36%). Since 2018, roughly a third of plan members have experienced such a high level of day-to-day stress.
- High daily stress increased to 57% among those who reported poor mental health and to 52% among those who reported poor financial health or poor workplace health.
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