Series
10, No. 199. Current Estimates, 1995. 444 pp. (PHS) 98-1527.
GPO stock number 017-022-01436-0 price: $34.00
The National Center for
Health Statistics has issued the latest summary of findings from the
National Health Interview Survey, a large-scale, annual survey on the
health of the Nation. This report presents data on the incidence of acute
conditions and injuries, prevalence of chronic disease, activity
limitation, time lost from work or school due to illness, health status,
number of physician contacts and hospitalizations in the civilian,
noninstitutionalized population. Highlights of the report include these
findings:
Respiratory
conditions were the most frequently reported acute condition in the 1995
survey, with influenza at a rate of 41 conditions per 100 persons easily
outstripping the common cold, the second most frequent respiratory
condition. Overal,l there were an estimated 174 acute conditions per 100
persons per year in 1995--similar to the 1994 rate.
The
reported chronic conditions with the highest prevalence rates in 1995 were
sinusitis, arthritis, deformity or orthopedic impairment, and
hypertension--each affecting more than 10 percent of the population.
Acute
and chronic conditions caused Americans to spend an average of 6 days in
bed, to lose over 5.3 days from work, and to miss 4.5 days from school.
In
1995, some 37 percent of the population rated their health as excellent
and almost 30 percent described their health as very good. Only 3 percent
viewed their health as poor. However, this assessment varied somewhat by
race and considerably by income, with blacks more likely to report poor
health than whites and those in the lowest income group more than 7 times
as likely to assess their health as poor than those with the highest
income.
On
average, Americans had almost 6 physician contacts--including visits to
the doctor's office, at the hospital, or by phone--for a total of more
than a billion and a half physician contacts in 1995.
Six
percent of the population had a hospital stay in 1995, while one percent
had two hospital episodes and an even smaller percent were hospitalized 3
or more times.