NHIS

2020 nhis data test

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What’s different about the 2020 NHIS Data?

The COVID-19 pandemic created challenges conducting in-person interviews for the 2020 NHIS, requiring changes to field procedures. These changes resulted in three analytic data files for sample adults.

  • Sample Adult Annual
    • Includes 31,568 completed interviews.
    • Use for single-year 2020 estimates and trend analyses.
  • Sample Adult Longitudinal
    • Includes the household IDs and sampling weight for 10,415 followback Sample Adults.
    • Use to merge with the 2019 and 2020 annual files.
  • Sample Adult Partial
    • Includes the household IDs and sampling weight for 21,153 Sample Adults from the original 2020 sample.
    • Use to merge with the 2020 annual file when combining data from 2019.

Changes to the Primary 2020 Data Collection

In March 2020, NHIS shifted from in-person to all-telephone interviewing because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The survey response rates declined after this change was made.

In July 2020, NHIS was able to resume in-person interviewing, but continued to conduct the survey mostly by telephone through December 2020.

The original August–December 2020 sample was reduced to provide resources for followback interviews.

Followback Interviews

Between August and December 2020, NHIS completed 10,415 interviews with Sample Adults who had completed the 2019 interview. These followback data augment the other data collected in 2020. In addition, they allow for a comparison of data for some outcomes from 2019 and 2020 for the same individuals.

Sample Child interviews were not completed with the followback sample. This resulted in a smaller-than-usual sample (5,790 interviews).

Additional Resources

Page last reviewed: September 30, 2021
Content source: National Center for Health Statistics