Sponsored by the Maternal and Child Health Bureau and coordinated through the National Center for Health Statistics, the National Survey of Children's Health (NSCH) is one of the largest surveys conducted at NORC, with approximately 1,700 interviews targeted for each state and the District of Columbia -- a total of 86,700 interviews to be completed by early 2008.
Conducted by NORC interviewers in a total of six languages, the NSCH provides a wide range of data on the physical and emotional health of children under the age of 18. The NSCH is designed to collect information on factors that impact the health and well-being of children, including:
- health and functional status,
- health insurance coverage,
- health care access and utilization,
- medical home,
- early childhood,
- middle childhood and adolescence,
- family functioning and parental health,
- neighborhood characteristics, and
- selected demographic characteristics.
The NSCH 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 NSCH, enjoy the methodological advantages of being based on a large Random Digit Dial (RDD) sample design without incurring the cost of establishing known households.