New Information Available from Health, United States

The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) recently released new topic summaries on hypertension, prescription drug use, and availability of dentists as part of Health, United States.

Additionally, new information was added to data tables on a variety of health topics already available on the Health, United States website.

Health, United States integrates data from the National Center for Health Statistics, other federal agencies, private organizations, and global sources to inform the nation’s health. It provides data on health care costs and payers, healthcare resources, health care use, and health status for the nation.

New topic summaries

Hypertension: The percentage of adults with high blood pressure (hypertension) remained stable from 2001 to early 2020. A more in-depth picture of hypertension patterns for different demographic groups is available by sex, age, and race and Hispanic origin.

Prescription Drug Use: The percentage of people taking at least one prescription drug did not change significantly between 2001 and early 2020. However, the percentage of those taking five or more drugs increased from 9.2% to 11.7%. Drug use varies across different age groups.

Dentists: In 2021, the East South Central and West South Central Census divisions had the fewest active dentists per 100,000 residents. The Middle Atlantic and Pacific divisions had the most.

The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey collects information on hypertension and prescription drug use. American Dental Association’s Health Policy Institute provides information on dentists.

New data

NCHS regularly updates the Health, United States data finder.

You can search the latest updated topics and can visualize the data through the NCHS Data Query System or through data.cdc.gov. The latest updates from Health, United States include–

• Active dentists (source: American Dental Association’s Health Policy Institute)
• Community hospital beds and hospital admission, including length of stay, outpatient visits, and outpatient surgery (source: American Hospital Association Annual Survey of Hospitals)
• Cholesterol, hypertension and prescription drug use in the past 30 days (source: NCHS’s National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey)
• Infant mortality and fetal mortality (source: NCHS’s National Vital Statistics System)

About Health, United States

NCHS produces Health, United States to report to Congress and the President as called for in Section 308 of the Public Health Service Act. For more than 40 years, NCHS has produced Health, United States to fulfill its statutory mandate through an annual report to Congress.

This data release marks a shift from an annual report to periodic online updates. It reflects NCHS’s commitment to delivering valuable health data to the public and supporting informed public health research and decision-making.

This most recent release advances several Health, United States goals:

• Responding to data users’ needs for timely and up-to-date information
• Providing ongoing digital updates as data are available

Stay up to date with the most recent Health, United States releases by signing up for e-mail updates.