Skip directly to search Skip directly to A to Z list Skip directly to page options Skip directly to site content
NCHS

Summary of NCHS Surveys and Data Collection Systems

Summary of Current Surveys and Data Collection Systems
National Center for Health Statistics, 2015

Population Surveys
Name Data Source & Methods Selected Data Items Targeted Sample Size Disparity Variables Frequency FY 2014-2015 Plans
National Health Interview Survey
  • Personal interviews
  • Health status and limitations
  • Utilization of health care
  • Health insurance
  • Access to care
  • Selected health conditions
  • Poisoning and injuries
  • Health behaviors
  • Functioning/disability
  • Immunizations
  • 42,000 households per year
  • Current sample design continues to oversample includes blacks, Hispanics and Asians. Sample adults are oversampled if 65+ and one of these minorities.
  • OMB categories **
  • Detailed Hispanic groups
  • Detailed API groups
  • Family and individual income, poverty level
  • Type of living quarters
  • Acculturation questions/language used during interview
  • Education and occupation
  • Birthplace
  • Citizenship status
  • Annual
  • Continue annual survey
  • Provide sampling frame – Medical Expenditure Panel Survey Planned Supplements
  • Ongoing – Functioning and disability; Child Mental Health; Enhanced access to care and utilization questions; Immunization; Tobacco use; ABCs of heart disease/stroke
  • 2015 Cancer control; occupational health; epilepsy
  • 2015 Balance; blood donation; diabetes
  • 2016 Implement a redesigned address-based sampleease/stroke
National Health Interview Survey-Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Survey
  • Personal interviews
  • Health status and limitations
  • Utilization of health care
  • Health insurance
  • Access to care
  • Selected health conditions
  • Poisonings and injuries
  • Health behaviors
  • Functioning/disability
  • Immunizations
  • 4,000 households
  • Sample addresses have been selected from completed 2012 American Community Survey interviews with households that included at least one person identifying as NHPI. Must confirm one household member identifies as NHPI to screen in.
  • OMB categories **
  • Detailed Hispanic groups
  • Detailed API groups
  • Family and individual
    income, poverty level
  • Type of living quarters
  • Acculturation questions/language
    used during interview
  • Education and occupation
  • Birthplace
  • Citizenship status
  • One-time data collection in 2014
  • Used 2014 NHIS core questionnaire
  • Release public use data file in fall 2015
National Health Interview Survey-National Health Care Interview Survey
  • Web and telephone
  • Abbreviated version of NHIS to focus on Affordable Care Act:
  • Health Insurance
  • Access to care and utilization
  • Health behaviors
  • 12,000 respondents
  • Follow-back survey of a nationally representative sample of U.S. population
  • OMB categories **
  • Detailed Hispanic groups
  • Detailed API groups
  • Family and individual
    income, poverty level
  • Type of living quarters
  • Acculturation questions/language
    used during interview
  • Education and occupation
  • Birthplace
  • Citizenship status
  • One-time
  • Data collected May 2013-February 2014
  • Release public use data file in 2015
National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey
  • Personal interviews
  • Physical examinations
  • Laboratory tests
  • Nutritional assessment
  • DNA repository
  • Selected diseases and conditions including those undiagnosed or undetected
  • Nutrition monitoring
  • Environmental exposures monitoring
  • Children’s growth & development
  • Infectious disease monitoring
  • Overweight and diabetes
  • Hypertension and cholesterol
  • 5,000 persons per year, all ages
  • Oversample 60+
  • Oversample blacks, Asians and Hispanics
  • OMB categories**
  • Data for black, white, other, Asian, Hispanic
  • Income and poverty index
  • Education
  • Occupation
  • Type of living quarters
  • Social services
  • Birthplace
  • Acculturation questions re: language usually spoken at home

  • Continuous, with
    capability for longitudinal follow-up

  • Data collection for annual sample
  • Data releases on two-year cycles
National Survey of Family Growth
  • Personal interviews
  • Men and women 15-44 years of age
  • Contraception & sterilization
  • Teenage sexual activity & pregnancy
  • Family planning/unintended pregnancy
  • Infertility, adoption, breastfeeding
  • Marriage, divorce, and cohabitation
  • Fatherhood involvement
  • HIV risk behavior
  • 5,000 men and women, 15-44 years of age
  • Oversample blacks, Hispanics and teens
  • OMB categories**
  • Four specific Hispanic groups
  • Family and individual
    income
  • Sources of income
  • Education
  • Primary language information collected starting fall 2011
  • Continuous
  • Data collection for 2013-2015 ongoing
  • Data set from 2-year 2013-2015 continuous interviewing to be released in fall of 2016

Vital Records
Name Data Source & Methods Selected Data Items Targeted Sample Size Disparity Variables Frequency FY 2014-2015 Plans
National Vital Statistics System
  • State vital registration
  • Births
  • Deaths
  • Fetal deaths
  • Linked Birth/Infant Death Program
  • Birth and death rates
  • Birthweight
  • Teen and nonmarital births
  • Pregnancy outcomes
  • Method of delivery
  • Preterm delivery
  • Multiple births
  • Medical payment
  • Breastfeeding
  • Maternal weight
  • Infant mortality
  • Life expectancy
  • Causes of death
  • Occupational mortality
  • All Births
    (about 4 million records annually)
  • All Deaths
    (about 2.4 million records annually)
  • Reported fetal deaths of 20+weeks gestation (about 26,000 annually)
  • Counts of marriages and divorces
  • For births, deaths, and fetal deaths:
  • OMB race categories (additional detail varies by state) and five Hispanic groups (additional detail varies by state). Multiple race information available for selected states.
  • Education
  • Births and deaths:
  • OMB categories (10 specific API
    groups from 11 states)
  • Marital status
  • Primary language information not collected
  • Annual
  • Continue monthly, annual data system
  • Assist states in automating and/or re-engineering their IT systems to enhance timeliness/quality of reporting
  • Complete implementation of 2003 revised certificates
    re-engineering process
  • Evaluate quality of new data items added in 2003
  • Implement new data access methods and reports
  • Develop mortality surveillance system
  • Improve timeliness of vital statistics reports and data files
  • Re-engineer or replace the medical coding system
National Death Index (NDI)
  • State registration areas – death certificates
  • Facilitates epidemiological follow-up studies from 1979-2013
  • Verification of death for study participants for health/medical research purposes only
  • Optional release of coded causes of death available to users upon request -NCHS surveys can be linked to NDI
  • All deaths
  • State provided race/ethnicity categories consistent with OMB categories
  • Marital status
  • State/territory of birth
  • Annual
  • Continue ongoing operations
  • Continue to improve timeliness of data availability for matching
  • Update NDI website
  • Expand outreach to health/medical research community

Provider Surveys
Name Data Source & Methods Selected Data Items Targeted Sample Size Disparity Variables Frequency FY 2014-2015 Plans
National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey
  • Review medical records for patient visits
  • Interview physicians and community health center providers
  • Patient characteristics and clinical management
  • Patient demographics, diagnoses,
    procedures and medications
  • Provider/clinician characteristics,
    specialty, practice size, ownership
  • Use of electronic medical records
  • Lab values for cholesterol and measures of diabetes control
  • patient visits
  • physicians in office-based practices
  • 332,080 patient visits
  • 8,080 physicians in
    office-based practices
  • 5,340 community health center providers
  • OMB categories**
  • Annual
  • Continue annual survey
  • Expanded sample size dependent upon receipt of additional funds
National Electronic Health Records Survey (formerly National Ambulatory
Medical Care Survey – Electronic Health Records)
  • Mail survey of office-based physicians
  • Provider characteristics
  • Use of electronic medical records/features
  • Specialty, practice size, ownership
  • 10,300 physicians in office-based practices in 50 states and DC
  • None collected
  • Annual
  • Continue annual survey
National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey-Physician Workflow Survey
  • Mail survey of office-based physicians
  • Provider characteristics
  • Use of electronic medical records
    and features
  • Specialty, practice size, ownership
  • Facility characteristics
  • Physician attitudes about electronic health records, barriers, benefits and impact
  • 5,600 physicians
  • Follow-up cohort over 3-years
  • None collected
  • Content added to National Electronic Health Records Survey in 2014

  • Follow-up survey of 2014 respondents dependent upon receipt of additional funds

National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey
  • Review medical records on patient visit
  • Interview hospital administrators
  • Patient characteristics
  • Patient demographics, length of stay
  • Diagnoses and treatment
  • Facility characteristics
  • Specialty, volume
  • Use of electronic medical records
  • 40,000 patient visits
  • 480 hospitals with EDs, outpatient
    departments, or ambulatory
    surgery locations
  • OMB categories**
  • Annual
  • Continue annual survey
National Hospital Care Survey (replaced the National Hospital Discharge Survey, last conducted in 2010)
  • Linkage to NDI and CMS data
  • Hospital billing (UB-04) records, electronic health records, and other abstracted medical records
  • Utilization of hospital care, inpatient care, and care delivered in EDs, OPDs, hospital-based and/or free standing ambulatory surgery locations
  • Sample of 581 hospitals
  • OMB categories**
  • Annual
  • Continue recruitment of hospitals and collection of data in hospitals currently recruited
National Study of Long-Term Care Providers (replaced the National Nursing Home Survey, National Home and Hospice Care Survey, and National Survey of Residential Care Facilities)
  • Mail/web/telephone/survey of directors of adult day care services centers and residential care communities
  • Administrative data from the CMS on nursing homes and residents, home health agencies and patients and hospices and patients
  • Provider characteristics, services, practices (EHRs), and staffing
  • Aggregated provider-level information on residents/participants/patients including demographics, Medicaid use, selected diagnoses, cognitive impairment, health status, physical functioning, hospital and ED use
  • Rotating topic modules State-level estimates where feasible
  • 11,618 residential care communities
  • 5,443 adult day care service centers
  • OMB categories**
  • Biennial starting in 2012
  • Restricted 2014 survey data files, reports and web tables release in 2015
  • Data collection in 2016

Telephone Surveys
Name Data Source & Methods Selected Data Items Targeted Sample Size Disparity Variables Frequency FY 2014-2015 Plans

State and Local Area Integrated Telephone Survey

  • National Survey of Children in Non-Parental Care, 2013 (NSCNC)
  • National Survey of the Diagnosis and Treatment of ADHD and Tourette Syndrome, 2014 (NS-DATA)
  • Landline/cell telephone interviews
  • Follow-back surveys to 2011-2012 National Survey of Children’s Health which used the sampling frame from the NIS
  • Demographic characteristics
  • Children in non-parental care
  • Diagnosis and treatment
  • Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
  • Tourette Syndrome
  • Health care access and use
  • Functioning
  • Unmet needs for care and services
  • Health insurance
  • Living situations
  • Types of services and supports needed and used
  • Child health & well-being
  • Caregiver health & well-being
  • Family dynamics
  • NSCNC – 1,600 children
  • NS-DATA – 3,700 children
  • OMB categories**
  • Income and poverty levels
  • Education
  • Insurance coverage
  • Primary language
  • One-time
  • Data collection in 2014
  • Data file and report release in 2015

** OMB categories include white, black or African-American, Asian, Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islanders, American Indian or Alaska Native. Hispanic origin is asked as a separate question.

Summary of Completed Surveys and Data Collection Systems
National Center for Health Statistics, 2015

Aging

Supplement on Aging (SOA) 1984

  • The SOA was conducted as a supplement to the 1984 National Health Interview Survey. The study included participants 55 years of age and older to characterize the health and social status of the group, and to provide information on how psychosocial and environmental factors interact with health factors to influence the aging population. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/lsoa/soa1.htm

Longitudinal Study of Aging (LSOA) 1984-1990

  • The SOA served as the baseline for the LSOA, a prospective study with a nationally representative sample of persons 70 years of age and older at the time of their 1984 SOA interview. The LSOA followed the cohort of older persons through three follow-up interviews conducted in 1986, 1988, and 1990. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/lsoa/lsoa1.htm

Second Supplement on Aging (SOA II) 1994-1996

  • The SOA II replicated the first SOA roughly 10 years later with a new cohort of persons 70 years of age and older to determine whether there were changes in the level of disability among older persons between 1984 and the mid-1990s. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/lsoa/soa2.htm

Second Longitudinal Study of Aging (LSOA II) 1994-1996

  • The LSOA II, a prospective study with a nationally representative sample from the SOA II, followed a cohort of older persons through two follow-up interviews, conducted in 1997-1998 and 1999-2000, to determine whether there had been changes in disability and impairment among older persons between the 1980s and 1990s. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/lsoa/soa2.htm

Disability

National Health Interview Survey on Disability (NHIS-D) 1994-1995

  • The NHIS-D was conducted to meet overlapping data needs of four DHHS offices to provide a useful set of measures while maintaining a balance between the social, administrative, and medical considerations involved in disability measurement. The NHIS-D was not limited to one definition of disability; therefore, it allowed analysts from varying programs to combine data items in different ways to meet specific agency or program needs. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nhis/nhis_disability.htm

National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey

National Hispanic Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (HHANES) 1982-1984

  • The HHANES was a one-time health examination survey focused on three major subgroups of the Hispanic population – Mexican Americans in the southwest, Cubans in Miami (Dade County) Florida, and Puerto Ricans in the New York City area. Hispanics were included in past health and nutrition examinations, but not in sufficient numbers to produce estimates of the health of Hispanics in general, or specific data for subgroups. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nhanes/hhanes.htm

NHANES Epidemiologic Follow-up Study (NHEFS) 1982-1984; 1986, 1987, 1992

  • The NHEFS was designed to investigate the relationship between clinical, nutritional, and behavioral factors assessed in the first National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (1971-1975), and subsequent morbidity, mortality, and hospital utilization, as well as changes in risk factors, functional limitation, and Institutionalization. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nhanes/nhefs/nhefs.htm

NHANES National Youth Fitness Survey (NNYFS) 2012

  • The NNYFS was conducted to collect data on physical activity and fitness levels in U.S. children aged 3-15. The survey provided an evaluation of their health and fitness levels through interviews and fitness tests. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nnyfs.htm

Provider Surveys

National Hospital Discharge Survey (NHDS) 1965-2008

  • The NHDS was a national probability survey designed to meet the need for information on characteristics of inpatients discharged from non-Federal short-stay hospitals in the United States. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nhds.htm

National Nursing Home Survey (NNHS) 1973-74, 1977, 1985, 1995, 1997, 1999 and 2004

  • The NNHS was a continuing series of national sample surveys of nursing homes, their residents, and staff. Although each of these surveys emphasized different topics, they all provided some common basic information about nursing homes, their residents, and staff. All nursing homes included in this survey had at least three beds and were either certified (by Medicare or Medicaid) or had a state license to operate as a nursing home. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nnhs.htm

National Health Provider Inventory (NHPI) 1991

  • The NHPI is a comprehensive national listing of health care facilities, including nursing homes, home health agencies, hospices, and licensed residential care facilities. Data in the inventory include information on the services, location, staff, and other characteristics of the facilities and provides a sampling frame of facilities for other health care provider surveys.

National Home and Hospice Care Survey (NHHCS) 1992-1994, 1996, 1998, 2000, and 2007

  • The 2007 NHHCS was one in a continuing series of nationally representative sample surveys of U.S. home health and hospice agencies. It was designed to provide descriptive information on home health and hospice agencies, their staffs, services, and patients. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nhhcs.htm

National Survey of Ambulatory Surgery (NSAS) 1994-1996; 2006

  • The NSAS provided the only national data on ambulatory surgical care in hospital-based and freestanding ambulatory surgery centers. Efforts are now underway to include ambulatory surgery centers in the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nsas.htm

National Nursing Assistant Survey (NNAS) 2004

  • The NNAS was the first national study of nursing assistants working in nursing facilities in the U.S. The survey looked at the important role of nursing assistance in providing long-term care services for the growing elderly and chronically ill population, and provided new information needed to recruit, retain, and expand the paraprofessional long-term care workforce. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nnas.htm

National Home Health Aide Survey (NHHAS) 2007

  • The NHHAS was the first national probability survey of home health aides, designed to provide national estimates of home health aides employed by agencies that provide home health and/or hospice care. The survey was conducted as a supplement to the 2007 National Home and Hospice Care Survey. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nhhas.htm

National Survey of Residential Care Facilities (NSRCF) 2010

  • The NSRCF was a first time national data collection effort to gather information about the characteristics of residential care facilities, including assisted living residences, board and care homes, congregate care, enriched housing programs, homes for the aged, personal care homes, and shared housing establishments. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nsrcf.htm

Vital Records

National Maternal and Infant Health Survey (NMIHS) 1988; 1991

  • The NMIHS collected data needed by Federal, State, and private researchers to study factors related to poor pregnancy outcomes, including low birthweight, stillbirth, infant illness, and infant death. The survey expanded on information available for birth, fetal death, and infant death vital records and was the first national survey that included data on the three pregnancy outcomes simultaneously. A longitudinal follow-up study was conducted in 1991 to obtain additional information about respondents from the 1988 survey. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/nmihs.htm

National Mortality Follow-back Survey (NMFS) 1993

  • The NMFS was conducted using a sample of U.S. residents who died in a given year to supplement the death certificate with information from a person familiar with the decedent’s life history. The information, sometimes enhanced by administrative records, provided a unique opportunity to study the etiology of disease, demographic trends in mortality, and other health issues. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/nmfs.htm

Insurance

National Employer Health Insurance Survey (NEHIS) 1994

  • The NEHIS was the first federally sponsored survey designed to produce state estimates of employer-sponsored health insurance. The objective was to measure state and national levels of health insurance spending by employers; to provide baseline data at the state and national levels for monitoring trends in the employment-based health insurance system; and to provide data for prospective policy analysis of the effects of health care reform. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/misc/employer.pdf

State and Local Area Integrated Telephone Survey

National Survey of Early Childhood Health (NSECH) 2000

  • The NSECH survey focused on the delivery of pediatric care to families with children under 3 years of age and the promotion of young children’s health by families in their homes.

National Survey of Children with Special Health Care Needs (CSHCN) 2001, 2005-2006, 2009-2010

  • The CSHCN survey assessed the prevalence and impact of special health care needs among children in the U.S., and to evaluate change over time. The survey explored the extent to which children with special health care needs had medical homes, adequate health insurance, assess to needed services, and adequate care coordination.

National Asthma Survey (NAS) 2003

  • The NAS examined the health, socioeconomic, behavioral, and environmental predictors that relate to better control of asthma. The study explored the content of care and health care expenditures of persons with asthma.

National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH) 2003, 2007, 2011-2012

  • The NSCH examined the physical and emotional health of children 0-17 years of age. Special emphasis was placed on factors that may relate to well-being of children, including medical homes, family interactions, parental health, school and after-school experiences, and safe neighborhoods.

Survey of Adult Transition and Health (SATH) 2007

  • The NSATH was a nationwide survey looking at the health of young people who were 19 to 23 years old in 2007, whose parents were originally interviewed in 2001 in a previous SLAITS health survey when the subjects were 14 to 17 years old. The goal of the follow-up survey was to examine their current health care needs and transition from pediatric health care providers to adult health care providers.

National Survey of Adoptive Parents (NSAP) 2007
  • The NSAP provided nationally representative estimates on the characteristics, pre-adoption experiences, and post-adoption support experiences of families of adopted children aged 0 to 17. These children were identified in other SLAITS surveys as being adopted through the U.S. foster care system, domestic private adoption agencies, or international adoption. .
National Survey of Adoptive Parents of Children with Special Health Care Needs (NSAPSN) 2008

  • The NSAPSN survey focused on the delivery of pediatric care to families with children under 3 years of age and the promotion of young children’s health by families in their homes.

Survey of Pathways to Diagnosis and Services (SPDS) 2011

  • SPDS provided nationally representative estimates on the characteristics of children with special health care needs aged 6-17 ever diagnosed with autism spectrum, intellectual disability or developmental delay. The survey examined, among other items, the emergence of symptoms, providers who made the diagnosis, and current and past treatment and services.

National Survey of Children in Non-Parental Care (NSCNC) 2013

  • NSCNC provided nationally representative estimates on the characteristics, living arrangements, and service accessibility of non-institutionalized children who were living apart from their parents in the United States. Children in non-parental care were identified in the 2011-2012 National Survey of Children’s Health.

National Survey of the Diagnosis and Treatment of ADHD and Tourette Syndrome (NS-DATA) 2014

  • NS-DATA assessed the diagnostic experiences as well as the service and treatment utilization of families raising children between 6 and 17 with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and/or with Tourette Syndrome in the United States. The survey examined, among other items, the individuals involved in the diagnostic assessment, current medication and treatment, and school functioning and performance.

TOP