[Most recent items first; resources for commenting below]
Medical Daily (Oct 3)
"Federal health officials are moving to shrink the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), and several questions about how Americans live with disabilities would not make the cut. Under a draft redesign set to start in 2028, more detailed questions on hearing aids, fatigue, cognition, and mobility aids such as wheelchairs and scooters would be removed, STAT reported on Oct. 1."
STAT (Oct 1)
"A proposed redesign of the federal government’s annual health survey would result in significant undercounting of Americans with intellectual and developmental disabilities, according to advocates for the vulnerable population.
"The National Health Interview Survey has historically undercounted people with disabilities, but the changes are a “head-scratcher,” said Katy Neas, CEO of The Arc, an advocacy group. “If we don’t have the government as a trusted source of data, asking questions about real people and what their real experiences are, we’re never going to get better [health outcomes],” she said."
[Original post from Sep 18]
Federal Register Notice to Extend and Redesign the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS)
“On August 20 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published a Federal Register notice inviting public comment on a proposal to extend NHIS data collection in 2027 and a proposed systemic redesign of the NHIS to be implemented in 2028.
“The changes described in the Federal Register notice are proposed to reduce operational costs and respondent burden. Broadly speaking, they represent a substantial reduction in the number of core content items and considerable overlap in items across the adult and child questionnaires. There are 161 questions on the proposed sample adult questionnaire and 89 questions on the sample child questionnaire, with 63 identical questions across the questionnaires and 6 very similar questions, leaving 92 unique questions for adults and 20 unique questions for children.”
