Critical data at the crossroads: the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey faces growing challenges

Abstract

NHANES needs urgent attention to ensure its future, which is facing emerging challenges associated with data collection, stagnant funding that has undercut innovation, and the increased call for granular data for subpopulations and groups at risk. The concerns do not rest merely on securing more funding but focus on the need for a constructive review of the survey to explore new approaches and identify appropriate change. This white paper, developed under the auspices of the ASN's Committee on Advocacy and Science Policy (CASP), is a call to the nutrition community to advocate for and support activities to prepare NHANES for future success in a changing nutrition world. Furthermore, because NHANES is much more than a nutrition survey and serves the needs of many in health fields and even commercial arenas, effective advocacy must be grounded in alliances among the survey's diverse stakeholders so that the full range of expertise and interests can engage. This article highlights the complicated nature of the survey along with key overarching challenges to underscore the importance of a measured, thoughtful, comprehensive, and collaborative approach to considering the future of NHANES. Starting-point questions are identified for the purposes of focusing dialog, discussion forums, and research. In particular, the CASP calls for a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine study on NHANES to articulate an actionable framework for NHANES going forward. With a well-informed and integrated set of goals and recommendations that could be provided by such a study, a secure future for NHANES is more readily achievable.

Keywords: NASEM; NHANES; health data; survey challenges.

FIGURE 1

The NCHS budget since 2009 shown in nominal and real (adjusted for inflation) dollars. Source: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_xt8oI2neZyTwaZvtyQOtujzuHnjemZPwPuYVsEELr0/edit#gid=131887528. “Real” values are expressed in FY09 dollars. Inflation rates based on the GDP deflator from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (https://www.bea.gov/taxonomy/term/796). Modified with permission from AmstatNews March 1, 2022 (https://magazine.amstat.org/blog/2022/03/01/nchs/).