N C H S - National Immunization Survey

You or a member of your family may have a chance to take part in an important national telephone survey that provides information to help guide the nation’s health policies.

Since 1994, the National Immunization Survey (NIS), conducted by the National Immunization Program and the National Center for Health Statistics of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), has provided the public with important statistics about childhood immunization and related health matters.

The NIS is conducted for the CDC by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago. If you have any questions about the National Immunization Survey (NIS), please call us toll free at 1-866-999-3340.

Each winter, CDC conducts the National Immunization Survey - Adult (NIS-Adult) following the National Immunization Survey of young children. The NIS-Adult asks person who are 18 and older about their recent experiences with and opinions about influenza, pneumococcal, human papillomavirus (HPV), tetanus diphtheria (Td), tetanus diphtheria pertussis (Tdap), shingles, hepatitis B and hepatitis A immunizations.

CDC also conducts the National Immunization Survey - Teen(NIS-Teen) about adolescents 13 to 17 years of age. The NIS-Teen asks questions similar to the NIS about vaccinations received during childhood.

The National Immunization Survey and the NIS-Teen include a request for parental or guardian permission to contact the medical providers who may have given vaccinations to the children, to obtain shot date information.

In addition to the immunization-related surveys, CDC also conducts other health-related surveys of households.

The National Survey of Children with Special Health Care Needs (CSHCN) uses the same telephone numbers as the National Immunization Survey. The CSHCN Survey is for children under 18 years of age and asks about a wide range of health-related topics including experiences with health care, health conditions that impact the child and the family, services needed and used, satisfaction with health-related services, and health care coverage. This survey was first conducted in 2001 and is being repeated in 2005-2006.

The National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH) was first conducted in 2003 and will be repeated in 2007. It asks general questions about all aspects of health, health care, well-being, and family characteristics of children under 18 years of age.

The National Asthma Survey (NAS) was completed in 2003 to learn more about who has asthma, how asthma is treated, and how it impacts those who have it and their families.

All of these surveys are conducted in households across the country by telephone. The telephone numbers are randomly selected by a computer using scientific methods so it is possible that unlisted numbers may also be contacted. For telephone numbers that can be matched to addresses, a letter from the Director of the National Center for Health Statistics that describes the survey is mailed before a telephone interview is conducted. Households are not asked to participate in all of these surveys; most households participate in only one survey. Surveys are assigned to telephone numbers using random assignment, and sometimes depend on the age group of the household members. Participation is voluntary and no information that identifies any individual will ever be released. All personal data are kept under strict confidentiality regulations followed by the CDC. Data are analyzed and statistical results are published in reports to benefit public health.

This Web site is for information purposes only, and is not meant to substitute for any information that the interviewer will provide to survey participants.