The Basics: CPS-3 Triennial Surveys
The goal of CPS-3 is to draw meaningful insights about, and develop recommendations for, cancer prevention and control strategies. Surveys are how we gather the information and data to make those insights and recommendations.
We send the surveys every 3 years, and each participant has a choice about how they want to answer:
- Online through the CPS-3 Portal OR
- On the paper survey received in the mail
Each Follow-up Survey covers a comprehensive list of questions about topics such as medical history, cancer screenings, genetic tests, and health behaviors like physical activity, sleep, diet, and smoking.
Don’t be surprised if you open a new survey and think, “Hey! I’ve answered some of these questions before.” You have. The reason we ask similar questions on each survey is to see if and how your health and lifestyle have changed over time.
But we also use surveys to ask you about new research topics (such as use of personal care products) aimed at continually improving our understanding about cancer risk factors.
Participation in these surveys is the foundation of our cancer prevention cohort studies. Each participant’s survey responses make up the data we use in cancer studies. The more people who answer—the more regularly you respond—the more reliable our study findings can be.
Most of our research is paid for by regular people—our donors. You can help us spend these donations wisely by finishing your survey promptly. The quicker we get responses, the fewer surveys and e-mail reminders we need to mail, which saves money and time.