Administered as part of the 2007 National Survey of Children’s Health, the National Survey of Adoptive Parents will focus on the characteristics and needs of adopted children and their adoptive families. 

This project continues work begun in 2005 to develop and field a survey on the experiences of families who have adopted children from foster care and other sources. It examines the factors that facilitate or hinder the success of adoptions. It will also look at the post-adoption support needed to assure the well-being of adopted children, and how the well-being and service needs of children adopted from foster care compare with other types of adoption. The survey, pretested in 2006 by NORC, is sponsored by the Administration of Children and Families and the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) in the Department of Health and Human Services. It is coordinated through the  National Center for Health Statistics.

The NSAP is administered using the State and Local Area Integrated Telephone Surveys (SLAITS) model, a telephone survey mechanism designed to benefit from the extensive sampling investment made by the National Immunization Survey.  In this manner, SLAITS surveys, such as the NSAP, enjoy the methodological advantages of being based on a large Random Digit Dial (RDD) sample design without incurring the cost of establishing known households.