Discovering Teen Health Insights with the CDC’s NHIS-Teen Survey

With the release of the new report Perceived Social and Emotional Support Among Teenagers: United States, July 2021 – December 2022 from CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics, an important finding stands out: Parents often report that their teens receive higher levels of social and emotional support  compared to what the teens report. The findings underscore the importance of collecting the teenager’s perspective in addition to parent-reported data. That’s where the National Health Interview Survey–Teen (NHIS–Teen) and its interactive data query tool come into play.

Understanding NHIS-Teen

NHIS–Teen is an online health questionnaire that teenagers aged 12-17 fill out themselves. These teens are initially selected through the NHIS Sample Child interview, where parents first provide information on their behalf. Later, with their parents’ permission, these same teenagers are invited to complete the NHIS–Teen survey to share information about their own health. The “follow-back” design allows researchers to link teens’ detailed demographic information reported by parents.

The survey was created as a pilot program that ran from July 2021 through December 2023 (30 months). The program was funded by CDC’s Data Modernization Initiative, which is focused on helping CDC provide faster, more actionable insights. Currently, the first eighteen months of data are available through the survey’s interactive query tool.

Lindsey I. Black, MPH, and Benjamin Zablotsky, PhD, serve as the survey’s co-leads. Both have been involved with every aspect of the survey’s development. They and their team have built the survey and interactive tool to help health researchers, program and policy leaders, and mental health professionals understand what’s happening with teen health. One of the major goals of NHIS-Teen is to provide timely information that accurately informs teen health decision making by including the teen perspective.

“What’s special about the survey is that it’s collected information from teens about their own health, and it has links to rich demographic characteristics that are provided by the parent,” explains Black.

Zablotsky adds, “Previous research has shown that parents don’t always have a great understanding of their teens’ mental health because a lot of times symptoms can be internalized. We had an opportunity to collect data from a nationally representative sample of teenagers.  We were able to hear from teens directly.  In doing so, we were able to capture a national and timely picture of teen health that we could also compare to the one created from their parents using the NHIS interview.”

Key Features of the Interactive Tool

To help make insights actionable, the team launched an interactive data query tool in September 2023 that helps users explore NHIS–Teen survey data. The tool includes the first 18 months of data from the survey and can generate over 1,500 unique estimates across various health topics and sociodemographic characteristics. Here are some of the standout features:

• Interactive Data Exploration: Users can delve into the data and uncover teen health estimates by navigating through various health topics.
• Customizable Filters: The tool allows for data segmentation by age, race, sex, and other demographics, providing tailored insights for specific groups.
• Visualizations: Users can generate tables and charts that make the data understandable at a glance, which aids in analysis and presentation.

The tool also automatically generates a suggested citation for each query, making the process of citing sources easy.

What the Future Holds

Health policy, research, and media organizations are making good use of NHIS-Teen data to drive awareness and address the unique health needs of teens. Black and Zablotsky plan to make the full thirty months of data from the survey available in Fall 2024.

The team also hopes NHIS-Teen will become an ongoing or periodic surveillance system, focused on emerging health topics for teens. According to Black and Zablotsky, they’re ready to continue the work. They have already started testing new questions that could be used in future NHIS-Teen surveys.