National Survey of Children's Health (NSCH)

Latest briefs and reports

Material Hardship Among Children, 2022 (PDF - 84 KB)
School Readiness, 2022 (PDF - 75 KB)

What is the NSCH?

Watch this video to learn about the NSCH and its value to our Nation.

The NSCH supports national efforts to improve the health and development of our children. We fund and direct the NSCH. The U.S. Census Bureau conducts this household survey each year. The survey provides national and state level data for key measures of child health and well-being. These data are essential to understanding the health status and health services needs of children across the nation and in your state and community.

Get the DATA and newest resources

The datasets are released annually on Child Health Day. The newest dataset is the 2022 dataset.

NSCH datasets at the U.S. Census Bureau

Attention

Revised 2021 NSCH datasets were released on October 2, 2023, and are available now on the 2021 Data Release page. These revised datasets should be used when combining with the 2022 NSCH datasets. Please read the weighting revisions technical document (PDF).

Data briefs

Material Hardship Among Children, 2022 (PDF - 84 KB)
School Readiness, 2022 (PDF - 75 KB)
2021 Healthy Weight: Foundations in Early Childhood (PDF - 1 MB) (April 2023)
2021 Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic (PDF - 166 KB) (October 2022)
2019-2020 Children and Youth with Special Health Care Needs (PDF) (June 2022)
2019-2020 Rural Children's Health and Health Care (PDF - 533 KB) (February 2022)
2019-2020 Key Findings and five-year trends (PDF - 467 KB) (October 2021)
2018-2019 Mental and Behavioral Health (PDF - 146 KB) (October 2020)
2017-2018 Rural/Urban Differences in Children’s Health (PDF - 194 KB) (October 2020)
2017-2018 National Survey of Children's Health - Overview (PDF - 660 KB) (July 2020)
2017-2018 Children with Special Health Care Needs (PDF - 942 KB) (July 2020)
2017-2018 Title V Block Grant Measure (PDF - 311 KB) (June 2020)
2017-2018 Adverse Childhood Experiences (PDF - 450 KB) (June 2020)
2016-2017 National Survey of Children's Health - Overview (PDF - 142 KB) (October 2018)

Survey resources

Archived surveys

Our partner, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), houses surveys and survey data we used prior to the 2016 NSCH redesign:

NSCH in the broader context

The NSCH supports national efforts to improve the health and development of our children.

The data are publicly available through the Data Resource Center for Child & Adolescent Health, a project of the Child and Adolescent Health Measurement Initiative. This resource center provides access through an online interactive data query.

The Title V Maternal and Child Health (MCH) Block Grant uses the NSCH to inform many of their national outcome and performance measures that track the health and well-being of children. The survey provides data for 20 Title V national outcome and performance measures.

The Maternal and Child Health Jurisdictional Survey (MCH-JS) (PDF - 646 KB) is a new effort to provide information on the health and well-being of mothers and children in eight United States-affiliated jurisdictions. We based the survey on the NSCH, and then included questions on the health of mothers too. The survey provides data for 24 Title V national outcome and performance measures, previously unavailable for the jurisdictions.

Healthy People 2030 — an initiative that sets data-driven national objectives to improve the health and well-being over the next decade — also uses the NSCH to inform 15 of their objectives.

Contact us

Michael D. Kogan, Ph.D., Director
MCHB Office of Epidemiology and Research

NSCH@hrsa.gov