It is a unit of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and a principal agency of the U.S. Federal Statistical System.
L. 84–652); it was the successor to a seminal national health survey performed by the Works Progress Administration during 1935–1936, which had multiple supplemental studies carried out in the intervening decades.
[5] NCHS collects data with surveys, from other agencies and U.S. states, from administrative sources, and from partnerships with private health partners.
[citation needed] The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) is NCHS's most in-depth and logistically complex survey, operating out of mobile examination centers that travel to randomly selected sites throughout the U.S. to assess the health and nutritional status of Americans.
This survey combines personal interviews with standardized physical examinations, diagnostic procedures, and laboratory tests to obtain information about diagnosed and undiagnosed conditions; growth and development, including overweight and obesity; diet and nutrition; risk factors; and environmental exposures.
Provider sites surveyed include physician offices, community health centers, ambulatory surgery centers, hospital outpatient and emergency departments, inpatient hospital units, residential care facilities, nursing homes, home health care agencies, and hospice organizations.
NCHS conducts the National Survey of Family Growth to obtain information on factors affecting birth and pregnancy rates, adoptions, and maternal and infant health, and supplements the information obtained on birth certificates collected through the National Vital Statistics System.