{"id":7649,"date":"2024-07-17T16:21:15","date_gmt":"2024-07-17T16:21:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.cdc.gov\/nchs\/?p=7649"},"modified":"2025-02-03T19:04:25","modified_gmt":"2025-02-03T19:04:25","slug":"discovering-teen-health-insights-with-the-cdcs-nhis-teen-survey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cdc.gov\/nchs\/2024\/07\/17\/7649\/","title":{"rendered":"Discovering Teen Health Insights with the CDC’s NHIS-Teen Survey"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the release of the new report Perceived Social and Emotional Support Among Teenagers: United States, July 2021 \u2013 December 2022<\/em><\/a> from CDC\u2019s National Center for Health Statistics, an important finding stands out: Parents often report that their teens receive higher levels of social and emotional support \u00a0compared to what the teens report. The findings underscore the importance of collecting the teenager\u2019s perspective in addition to parent-reported data. That\u2019s where the National Health Interview Survey\u2013Teen (NHIS\u2013Teen)<\/a> and its interactive data query tool<\/a> come into play.<\/p>\n

Understanding NHIS-Teen<\/strong><\/p>\n

NHIS\u2013Teen 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\u2013Teen survey to share information about their own health. The \u201cfollow-back\u201d design allows researchers to link teens\u2019 detailed demographic information reported by parents.<\/p>\n

The survey was created as a pilot program that ran from July 2021 through December 2023 (30 months). The program was funded by CDC\u2019s Data Modernization Initiative<\/a>, which is focused on helping CDC provide faster, more actionable insights. Currently, the first eighteen months of data are available through the survey\u2019s interactive query tool.<\/p>\n

Lindsey I. Black, MPH, and Benjamin Zablotsky, PhD, serve as the survey\u2019s co-leads. Both have been involved with every aspect of the survey\u2019s 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s special about the survey is that it\u2019s collected information from teens about their own health, and it has links to rich demographic characteristics that are provided by the parent,\u201d explains Black.<\/p>\n

Zablotsky adds, \u201cPrevious research has shown that parents don’t always have a great understanding of their teens\u2019 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.\u00a0 We were able to hear from teens directly. \u00a0In 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Key Features of the Interactive Tool<\/strong><\/p>\n

To help make insights actionable, the team launched an interactive data query tool<\/a> in September 2023 that helps users explore NHIS\u2013Teen 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:<\/p>\n