National Health Interview Survey, COVID-19, and Online Data Collection Platforms: Adaptations, Tradeoffs, and New Directions

Abstract

High-quality data are accurate, relevant, and timely. Large national health surveys have always balanced the implementation of these quality dimensions to meet the needs of diverse users. The COVID-19 pandemic shifted these balances, with both disrupted survey operations and a critical need for relevant and timely health data for decision-making. The National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) responded to these challenges with several operational changes to continue production in 2020. However, data files from the 2020 NHIS were not expected to be publicly available until fall 2021. To fill the gap, the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) turned to 2 online data collection platforms—the Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey (HPS) and the NCHS Research and Development Survey (RANDS)—to collect COVID-19‒related data more quickly. This article describes the adaptations of NHIS and the use of HPS and RANDS during the pandemic in the context of the recently released Framework for Data Quality from the Federal Committee on Statistical Methodology. (Am J Public Health. 2021;111(12):2167–2175. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2021.306516 )