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About NCHS
Adolescent Health Data
Teen Health Status
Teen Reproductive Health
Obesity Among Adolescents
Injury Mortality
Adolescent Health Data Sources
The CDC's National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) is the nation's principal health statistics agency, providing data to identify and address health issues. NCHS compiles statistical information to help guide public health and health policy decisions.
Collaborating with other public and private health partners, NCHS employs a variety of data collection mechanisms to obtain accurate information from multiple sources. This process provides a broad perspective to help us understand the population's health, influences on health, and health outcomes.
The health and risk behaviors of adolescents have consequences for their current and long term well-being as well as consequences for society. This document reflects only a few data highlights on adolescent health; however, NCHS collects data on a variety of topics affecting adolescents, including:
Health Care Coverage
Indicators of Health Status
Hospitalizations and Ambulatory Visits
Reproductive Health
Injuries
Death Rates
As a common indicator of health, in 2007, adolescents aged 12-19 were asked to rate their health as excellent, very good, good, fair or poor.
- 50 percent reported they were in excellent health;
- 29 percent reported they were in very good health;
- 18 percent reported they were in good health, and 2 percent reported they were in fair or poor health.
Following a 14 year downward trend in which teen births fell by 34 percent between 1991 and 2005, the teen birth rate in the U.S. rose in 2006.
In 2006, pregnant females aged 12-19 made 4.3 million ambulatory visits to either physician offices or hospital outpatient departments for either routine prenatal or unconfirmed pregnancy examinations.
Source: Births: Preliminary Data for 2006, National Vital Statistics Reports
Vol. 56, No. 7: National Center for Health Statistics, 2007.
Obesity among adolescents in the U.S. continues to be a public health concern. The Body Mass Index (BMI)-for-age at or above the 95th percentile was estimated for adolescents aged 12-19 based on the 2000 CDC growth charts.
- In 2003-2006, 17.6 percent of adolescents had high BMI-for-age.
- Almost 28 percent of non-Hispanic black teen girls aged 12-19 and almost 20 percent of Mexican American teen girls had high BMI-for-age compared with 14.5 percent of non-Hispanic white teen girls.
- Among boys aged 12-19, Mexican Americans were more likely to have high BMI-for-age than non-Hispanic whites.
Source: National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 2003 – 2006.
In 2005, injuries accounted for 75 percent of all deaths among adolescents aged 15-19. In the same year, there were 49.8 injury deaths per 100,000 adolescents aged 15-19, down 2.9 percent from the rate in 2004. The leading causes of death among adolescents are unintentional injuries, homicides and suicides. The following reflect adolescent death rates due to injury in 2005.
NCHS employs a variety of data collection mechanisms to obtain accurate information from multiple sources: They include:
For further information about NCHS and its programs, visit us at http://www.cdc.gov/nchs, or call the Office of Planning, Budget and Legislation at 301-458-4100.
National Center for Health
Statistics
3311 Toledo Road
Hyattsville, MD 20782
Phone:
1-800-232-4636
nchsquery@cdc.gov
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1600 Clifton Rd, Atlanta, GA 30333, U.S.A
Tel: (404) 639-3311 / Public Inquiries: (404) 639-3534 / (800) 311-3435