A major new survey to find out how healthy Irish people are has been launched by the Department of Health.

The Healthy Ireland survey will cover topics such as smoking, alcohol consumption, nutrition, physical activity levels and weight management.

Over 10,000 households have been randomly selected to take part in the survey, which is due to begin in the next few weeks. It is hoped that results will be available as early as next April or May.

This marks the first comprehensive survey on health since 2007 and according to Health Minister, Leo Varadkar, there have been ‘huge changes' since then.

"On the one hand, more people are more aware of the importance of diet, lifestyle, health, wellbeing and mental fitness. But as a nation, we now face even bigger challenges on obesity, stress, diet and many other areas, so there's a big job ahead of us," he commented.

He said that the data gathered from this survey will help ensure that the right health policies are in place and will also ‘tell us what areas we need to focus on in the future'.

Households that have been selected to take part will shortly receive letters inviting them to participate.

According to Kate O'Flaherty, director of the Health and Wellbeing Programme in the Department of Health, the data collected ‘will remain confidential at all times'.