End of CTIS Data Collection

The US COVID-19 Trends and Impact Survey stopped inviting new respondents to complete the survey on June 25, 2022. All aggregate data will remain publicly available, and microdata will continue to be available to academic and nonprofit researchers. Below is the information we provided users of the data as the we prepared to end the survey.

Why CTIS Data Collection is Concluding

CTIS was launched at the height of the global COVID-19 emergency, on April 6, 2020, to enable daily syndromic surveillance at a time when testing and data on the emerging pandemic were limited. Since CTIS launched, pandemic response decision-makers from around the world have utilized CTIS’ daily data on symptoms associated with COVID-19, such as fevers, coughing or shortness of breath – as well as other topics covered in the survey from mask wearing to COVID-related job loss. See below to learn more about how CTIS has supported the COVID-19 response.

At this point in the pandemic, reliable data to track similar topics as CTIS have become more widely available. Additionally, CTIS response rates have declined over time, and as COVID-19 has evolved, there is less need for large, daily data collection and greater need for measurement of topics that do not change significantly on a daily basis. Since CTIS is designed specifically for large-scale, daily data collection, the Delphi Group at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), the University of Maryland Social Data Science Center (UMD) and Meta have made the decision to stop collecting new survey responses. We are working to curate and archive the tens of millions of privacy-protected survey responses received since 2020 and the aggregate estimates derived from them to ensure the data remain available to academic and nonprofit researchers.

Sampling will be suspended in the United States on June 25, 2022. For details on the schedule of the international version administered by the University of Maryland, see their end-of-survey announcement.

Availability of Data After the Conclusion of CTIS

We are working to archive the data that has been collected so it can continue to inform public health decisions for years to come. In line with CTIS policies and standards during the sampling period, all data will be maintained in a way that continues to preserve user privacy.

All CTIS aggregate data will continue to be available after data collection stops on June 25, 2022 on UMD‘s Global CTIS and the Delphi Group at CMU’s US CTIS websites. Academic and nonprofit researchers may continue to request access to non-public, non-aggregated survey data for their research, and current approved data users will be able to continue accessing the non-aggregated data until their current data use agreements (DUA) expire. Researchers currently holding a fully executed DUA will have the option to extend their DUA after it expires. Though no new data will be collected after June 25, 2022, Meta’s CTIS visualizations will continue to be available, and until the end of 2022, JH CCP’s COVID Behaviors dashboard will as well.

CTIS Impact

CTIS is the largest public health survey ever conducted and has been used to inform the decisions of governments, health organizations, nonprofits, research institutions and academics around the world as they implemented their COVID-19 response efforts. The survey data has been used by over 100 stakeholders across over 60 countries. CTIS has demonstrated the positive impact that surveys of health behaviors and needs can have on improving access to health information, support, and care.

For example, the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) uses CTIS data to inform its COVID-19 prediction models. Via these models, CTIS mask wearing data informed a mask mandate in Poland, which contributed to a significant drop in COVID-19 cases. In the US, a Johns Hopkins University study using CTIS data published in Science on household COVID-19 risk and in-person schooling contributed to the US CDC’s Independent Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices’ recommendation to allow vaccinations in younger children. Several research groups used CTIS data to produce forecasts for the COVID-19 Forecast Hub, used by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to inform COVID-19 response. Overall, there have been roughly 20 peer-reviewed research articles using the US survey data as of April 2022, with more currently in progress.

We are grateful to the millions of Facebook users that took the survey, many of them taking it multiple times over the course of two years. Thank you as well to the many researchers, nonprofit leaders and public health officials who have ensured and continue to ensure that CTIS responses inform public health decisions around the globe.