Living with a life-limiting illness: A 2024 national crowdsourced study of experiences and access to care

In their crowdsourced study Living with a life-limiting illness: A 2024 national crowdsourced study of experiences and access to care, Statistics Canada seeks to better understand the lived experience of Canadians who are affected by diseases or conditions that cannot be cured, get worse over time and ultimately shorten their lifespan. The study also aims to provide information on the experience of Canadians who act as unpaid caregivers in a non-professional capacity—such as family, friends or community members—to those with life-limiting illnesses.

Statistics Canada is a Care Economies in Context project team member.

Citation

Statistics Canada. (2025). Living with a life-limiting illness: A 2024 national crowdsourced study of experiences and access to care. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/251001/dq251001a-eng.htm?HPA=1

Abstract

Today, Statistics Canada is releasing data from a new crowdsourced study, Living with a Life-Limiting Illness: Access to Care and Related Experiences, collected from October 8, 2024, to March 31, 2025. The purpose of this study is to better understand the lived experience of Canadians who are affected by diseases or conditions that cannot be cured, get worse over time and ultimately shorten their lifespan. It also aims to provide information on the experience of Canadians who act as unpaid caregivers in a non-professional capacity—such as family, friends or community members—to those with life-limiting illnesses.

As Canada’s population ages and the number of individuals living with life-limiting illnesses increases, the demand for high-quality palliative care continues to grow. Understanding the barriers and supports related to access is critical to ensuring that Canadians receive timely and appropriate care. Such care can reduce suffering, improve quality of life and extend survival.

This release highlights key findings from a crowdsourced study on timely access to care, barriers to care and factors affecting care for persons living with life-limiting illnesses and their unpaid caregivers. As the results from this study were gathered through crowdsourcing, they are not expected to be representative of the population and should be interpreted with caution. More details about the methods used in this crowdsourced study can be found in the Note to readers below.