Did you know that NCHS has proposed a redesign of the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS)?
Starting in 2027, several key topics would rotate off the survey, while some new content would rotate on. Then, beginning in 2028–2029, NCHS plans a broader redesign to shift from primarily in-person interviews to an approach using web, mail, and in-person follow-up, with a shorter, less structured questionnaire.
Key questions remain about how these changes could affect response rates, what the methodological justifications are for the new design, and whether results will remain comparable to prior years. The Federal Register Notice, accepting public comments until October 19, 2026, is one of the few opportunities to raise these questions to the agency before the redesign takes effect.
Join our Rapid Response Data Briefing to learn what's in NHIS, why it's important, the potential risks it's facing, and how you can weigh in on changes to this essential dataset.
Register here for the webinar on Tuesday, September 29, 2026, from 3-3:30 PM ET. A recording of the webinar will be shared publicly and emailed to all registrants.
Speakers:
Jennifer Madans: former Associate Director for Science, Acting Deputy Director, and Acting Director of the National Center for Health Statistics
Jeffrey Hall: former CDC Deputy Director, Office of Health Equity
Vi Le: Senior Advisor, Federal Data Policy, Federation of American Scientists; former Behavioral Scientist, CDC’s Division of Violence Prevention
Christopher Marcum: Senior Advisor, Federal Data Policy, Federation of American Scientists; former White House OMB and OSTP
Melanie Klein: Senior Associate, Federal Data Policy, Federation of American Scientists (moderator)
This webinar is cohosted by dataindex.us, Federation of American Scientists Data Policy Institute, Association of Public Data Users, and Population Reference Bureau.