• Component Description
• Eligible Sample
• Interview Setting and Mode of Administration
• Quality Assurance & Quality Control
• Data Processing and Editing
• Analytic Notes
• Codebook
  • SEQN - Respondent sequence number
  • HUQ010 - General health condition
  • HUQ030 - Routine place to go for healthcare
  • HUQ051 - #times receive healthcare over past year
  • HUD062 - How long since last healthcare visit
  • HUQ071 - Overnight hospital patient in last year
  • HUQ085 - CHECK ITEM
  • HUQ090 - Seen mental health professional/past yr

National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey

2017-March 2020 Data Documentation, Codebook, and Frequencies

Hospital Utilization & Access to Care (P_HUQ)

Data File: P_HUQ.xpt

First Published: September 2021

Last Revised: NA

Component Description

The NHANES program suspended field operations in March 2020 due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. As a result, data collection for the NHANES 2019-2020 cycle was not completed and the collected data are not nationally representative. Therefore, data collected from 2019 to March 2020 were combined with data from the NHANES 2017-2018 cycle to form a nationally representative sample of NHANES 2017-March 2020 pre-pandemic data. These data are available to the public. Please refer to the Analytic Notes section for more details on the use of the data.

The Hospital Utilization and Access to Care questionnaire (variable name prefix HUQ) provides respondent-level interview data on self-reported health status and access to health care topics.

Eligible Sample

All participants in the NHANES 2017-March 2020 pre-pandemic sample are included in this dataset.

Interview Setting and Mode of Administration

The questionnaire was asked, in the home, by trained interviewers using Computer-Assisted Personal Interview (CAPI) system. A proxy provided information for survey participants who were under 16 years of age and for individuals who could not answer the questions themselves. The respondent selected the language of interview (English or Spanish) or requested that an interpreter be used. Hand cards, showing response choices or information that survey participants needed to answer the questions, were used for some questions. The hand cards were printed in English, Spanish, Mandarin Chinese (both traditional and simplified), Korean, and Vietnamese. The interviewer directed the respondent to the appropriate hand card during the interview. When necessary, the interviewer further assisted the respondent by reading the response choices listed on the hand cards.

The NHANES 2017-2018 and 2019-2020 questionnaires are available on the NHANES website.

Quality Assurance & Quality Control

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.

After collection, interview data were reviewed by the NHANES field office staff for accuracy and completeness of selected items. The interviewers were required to audio-record interviews and the recorded interviews were reviewed by NCHS staff and interviewer supervisors.

Data Processing and Editing

Frequency counts were checked, “skip” patterns were verified, and the reasonableness of question responses was reviewed. Edits were made to some variables to ensure the completeness, consistency, and analytic usefulness of the data. Edits were also made, when necessary, to address data disclosure concerns.

For the 2019-20 survey cycle, the question HUQ061 was changed to HUQ062 and the response categories were changed. The questions were combined into HUD062 for this data file using coding from the table below.

HUQ061. About how long has it been since you last saw or talked to a doctor or other health care professional about your health? Include doctors seen while you were a patient in a hospital. Has it been…		HUQ062. About how long has it been since you last saw a doctor or other health care professional about your health for any reason?		HUD062. Combination of HUQ061 and HUQ062.
Response Category	Value	Response Category	Value	Value
		Never	0	0
6 months or less,	1	Within the past year (anytime less than 12 months ago)	1	1
More than 6 months, but not more than 1 year ago,	2
More than 1 year, but not more than 2 years ago,	3	within the last 2 years (1 year but less than 2 years ago)	2	2
More than 2 years, but not more than 5 years ago,	4	within the last 3 years (2 years but less than 3 years ago)	3	3
		within the last 5 years (3 years but less than 5 years ago)	4
More than 5 years ago, or	5	within the last 10 years (5 years but less than 10 years ago)	5	4
		10 years ago or more	6
never?	6			0

Analytic Notes

The COVID-19 pandemic required suspension of NHANES 2019-2020 field operations in March 2020 after data were collected in 18 of the 30 survey locations in the 2019-2020 sample. Because the collected data were not nationally representative, these data were combined with data from the previous cycle (2017-2018) to create a 2017-March 2020 pre-pandemic data file. A special weighting process was applied to the 2017-March 2020 pre-pandemic data file. The resulting sample weights in the demographic data file should be used to calculate estimates from the combined cycles. These sample weights are not appropriate for independent analyses of the 2019-2020 data and will not yield nationally representative results for either the 2017-2018 data alone or the 2019-March 2020 data alone. Please refer to the NHANES website for additional information for the NHANES 2017-March 2020 pre-pandemic data, and for the previous 2017-2018 public use data file with specific weights for that 2-year cycle.

Please refer to the Analytic Guidelines and the online NHANES Tutorial for the use of sample weights and other analytic issues.

Since the questionnaire was asked during the household interview, the interview sample weights should be used in the analysis. However, if the data is joined with data from the Mobile Exam Center (MEC), the MEC sample weights should be used.

Codebook and Frequencies