NCHS releases public use data sets from the continuous NHANES in two-year cycles. This initial release does not contain all the data collected during 2017-2018. Additional survey component files are still undergoing data processing, quality assessment and disclosure review. As these processes are completed, there will be additional public releases of 2017-2018 data files posted on the What's New page.
The data and documentation for the interview, laboratory, and examination components of the survey are released in numerous files to facilitate ease of use and access. This multiple file format requires the user to merge files to create analytic data sets. This data release will allow for analyses of data collected in 2017-2018 as well as the combination of these data with those collected in 1999-2016. The Analytic Guidelines provide guidance on the use of appropriate sample weights and analytic strategies, and will be revised periodically to incorporate survey design changes and more recent statistical practices and procedures. Users are encouraged to check the What's New page and this site regularly for updates on available data, documentation and guidelines.
NHANES data in this release are in SAS transport file format.
- Use the XPORT engine to access this data in any version of SAS.
- Copy the transport files to a permanent SAS library
As an example, assume you have downloaded the Body Measures exam data to the folder "C:\NHANES". You can then use the following SAS code to copy the Body Measures Exam Data:
LIBNAME XP XPORT "C:\NHANES\bmx_j.xpt";
PROC COPY IN=XP OUT=SASUSER;
RUN;
Additional details on downloading datasets can be found in the online tutorial.