National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey

NHANES 2007-2010 Sampling Methodology Note

Starting in 2007, a new sampling methodology was implemented. We oversampled all Hispanics, not just Mexican Americans (Table 1). In addition, for each of the race/ethnicity domains, the 12-15 and 16-19 year age domains were combined and the 40-59 year age minority domains were split into 10 year age domains 40-49 and 50-59 (Table 2). This has led to an increase in the number of participants aged 40+ and a decrease in 12-19 year olds from previous cycles. Lastly, we no longer oversampled pregnant women. Based on these changes some variables have been modified from previous release cycles.

Table 1. Unweighted sample size and percent by race/ethnicity from NHANES 2005-06, 2007-08 and 2009-2010 for examined participants
Race / Ethnicity Number (2005-06) Percent (2005-06) Number (2007-08) Percent (2007-08) Number (2009-10) Percent (2009-10)
Hispanic-Mexican American 2,739 27.5 2,064 21.1 2,305 22.5
Hispanic-Other Hispanic 330 3.3 1,147 11.7 1,103 10.8
Non-Hispanic Black 2,615 26.3 2,141 21.9 1,903 18.6
Non-Hispanic White 3,778 38.0 3,969 40.7 4,317 42.1
Other 488 4.9 441 4.5 625 6.1
Total 9,950 100 9,762 100 10,253 100
Table 2. Unweighted sample size and percents by age groups from NHANES 2005-06, 2007-08 and 2009-2010 for examined participants
Age group (years) Number (2005-06) Percent (2005-06) Number (2007-08) Percent (2007-08) Number (2009-10) Percent (2009-10)
0-5 1,864 18.7 1,630 16.7 1,662 16.2
6-11 1,106 11.1 1,215 12.4 1,222 11.9
12-19 2,207 22.2 1,210 12.4 1,310 12.8
20-39 1,839 18.5 1,844 18.9 2,033 19.8
40-59 1,446 14.5 1,818 18.6 2,021 19.7
60+ 1,488 15.0 2,045 20.9 2,005 19.6
Total 9,950 100 9,762 100 10,253 100