National Health and Nutrition Epidemiological Survey (NHANES)
Organization
National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), CDC
Description
- Program of studies designed to assess the health and nutritional status of adults and children in the US
- Combines interviews and physical examinations
- Interview topics include demographics, socioeconomics, diet, and health while examination topics include medical, dental, physiological, and laboratory
- Medical conditions and health indicators include anemia, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, environmental exposures, eye diseases, hearing loss, infectious diseases, kidney disease, nutrition, obesity, oral health, osteoporosis, physical fitness and physical functioning, reproductive history and sexual behavior, respiratory disease, sexually transmitted diseases and vision
- Some risk factors include smoking, alcohol consumption, sexual practices, drug use, physical fitness and activity weight, and dietary intake
- Used to estimate number and percentage of US population with diseases and risk factors, monitor trends in risk behaviors and exposures as well as prevalence, control and treatment of outcomes, among other aims
Vintage/Release Frequency
2-year cycles released every 2 years since 2000
Observational Unit
Person
Collection Methodology
- Nationally representative sample of resident, civilian, non-institutionalized US population
- Four-stage sample design
- Questionnaire and health examination using mobile examination center
- Over-sampling was performed but varied from sample to sample
- COVID affected data collection for 2019-2020 cycle collected data are not nationally representative; they’ve released special 2017-2020 pre pandemic data files that are nationally representative
User Guide/Data Dictionary
Available in website by cycle and file/component
Proposal or Application required?
Not for public use files but yes for restricted use files.
DUA required?
Not for public use files but yes for restricted use files.
Special Notes
- Other versions of NHANES were conducted prior to 1999. See the website for more details and to access the data.
- Additional restricted data files require access to research data center.