As a companion survey to the National Immunization Survey (NIS), the National Survey of Children with Special Healthcare Needs (NS-CSHCN) provides estimates of the number and characteristics of children with special health care needs at a state and national level.  Sponsored by the Maternal and Child Health Bureau and coordinated through the National Center for Health Statistics, the NS-CSHCN was a seven-quarter survey that began in April, 2005 and ran through February, 2007.  Final data and documentation were delivered in May of 2007.

Approximately 47,000 interviews were completed: 41,000 in a state-level main sample, and 6,000 in a national-level referent sample.  Interviews were conducted in English, Spanish, Cantonese, Mandarin, Korean, and Vietnamese.

Data were collected through the State and Local Area Integrated Telephone Survey (SLAITS) mechanism, which takes advantage of the extensive work required by the NIS to screen households to identify the small number with NIS age-eligible children.  The SLAITS interview was conducted once the NIS interview was complete or upon determination that the household was ineligible for the NIS.

The flexibility of the SLAITS mechanism was amply demonstrated during administration of the NC-CSHCN.  In the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, additional items were quickly embedded into the survey to evaluate the specific health and welfare impacts of the evacuation on these special needs children and their families, including their ability to find:

• appropriate shelter and access to medical care,
• prescription medication,
• mental health services,
• durable equipment, and
• other special therapies.

Similarly, SLAITS was tested in 2006 as a quick-turnaround mechanism to address future data needs that may arise from an emergent public health event, such as Avian Influenza. Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE), an experimental data collection effort was designed to evaluate the administration of influenza immunizations in children during the 2005-06 flu season, as well as the presence in children of risk factors for which the immunization is indicated.  More than 9,000 interviews were completed over the three-month period that ended in August, 2006 and the data file was delivered to the client in September, 2006.