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National Survey of Children’s Health Questionnaires, Datasets, and Supporting Documents

The Data Resource Center for Child & Adolescent Health provides an easy to use Interactive Data Query for all years of the NSCH and a Guide to NSCH changes across survey years.

Guidance for data users

How-to instructions for using the NSCH data.

Attention

Historically enhanced 2016-2020 National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH) data files were released in April 2024 and are available on the NSCH datasets page. This data release is a continuation of the improvements that were made to the 2021 NSCH data set released in October 2023. These revised datasets should be used when combining or comparing with the 2022 NSCH. Please read the weighting revisions technical document (PDF).

A note on sample size

In both individual year and multi-year analyses, the NSCH sample size may be limited for smaller populations (e.g., American Indian (AI) /Alaska Native (AN)) and state-level subgroups or rare outcomes (e.g., adolescent children with special health care needs (CSHCN) or autism in a particular state).

Small sample sizes may produce unstable estimates.

To minimize misinterpretation, we recommend only presenting statistics with a sample size or unweighted denominator of 30 or more.

Additionally, if the 95% confidence interval width exceeds 20 percentage points or 1.2 times the estimate (≈ relative standard error>30%), we recommend flagging for poor reliability and/or presenting a measure of statistical reliability (e.g., confidence intervals or statistical significance testing) to promote appropriate interpretation.

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