National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey

The Current Health Status section (variable name prefix HSQ) provides personal interview data on overall health assessment, recent illness (past 30 days), blood donation, and HIV testing.

Study participants aged 1-11 years are only asked 3 questions regarding recent illness (HSQ500, HSQ510, and HSQ520). The remaining questions are asked of participants 12 years of age and older, except for the blood donation and HIV testing questions, which are asked of participants 16 years of age and older.

The current health status questionnaire was done in the Mobile Examination Center (MEC), by trained interviewers, using the Computer-Assisted Personal Interview (CAPI) system. It was conducted by a MEC interviewer, during the MEC Interview, for participants 12 and older. It was conducted by a dietary interviewer, during the MEC dietary recall interview, for participants 1-11 years old (proxy interview).

The CAPI system is programmed with built-in consistency checks to reduce data entry errors. CAPI also uses online help screens to assist interviewers in defining key terms used in the questionnaire.

All of the data was reviewed for accuracy and completeness.

Frequency counts were verified during the preparation of the file.

HSD010 This identical question is asked in the Hospital Utilization section of the household questionnaire (HUQ010). There is a small difference in the administration of the two questions. Participants aged 12-15 years have proxy responses in the household, but respond for themselves at the MEC. Many participants had different responses to this question in the household interview, compared to their responses during the MEC interview. Analysts should consider which of the two versions of this question is best to use for the purposes of their analyses.

HSQ500, HSQ510, and HSQ520 were asked in the Dietary Recall section for participants aged 1–11 years. Respondents 12 years and older were asked the same questions during the MEC Interview using CAPI. (The variable HSAQUEX identifies the source of data for each respondent.)

HSQ571 The question on blood donation, HSQ570, was re-worded in 2002 (dropping the phrase “a year ago”) and was re-numbered HSQ571. For the 2001-2002 data release, responses to both versions of this question were combined into one variable, named HSD570. For data releases from 2003-2014, only question HSQ571 was asked.

In 2014, five questions (see below) were dropped from the survey. Data collected for these variables in 2013 will not be released publically due to sample size and data disclosure concerns, etc. The 2013 information for these five variables is only available through the NCHS Research Data Center (RDC). The specific questions dropped are as follows:

Exam sample weights should be used for analyses.

Please refer to the NHANES Analytic Guidelines and the on-line NHANES Tutorial for further details on the use of sample weights and other analytic issues.