Key Concepts About Population Counts

Calculating population counts for a given condition from NHANES follows these steps:   

 

  1. Calculate the percentage who have the outcome or characteristic by age, sex, or race/ethnicity subgroups, in which you are interested.  You will output these results to a SAS or Stata file.

 

Info iconIMPORTANT NOTE

Note: Age standardization of the prevalence estimates is NOT performed because the population counts should be based on the crude (unadjusted) prevalence in the population.

 

  1. Use the relevant population totals from the Current Population Surveys (CPS) to determine population estimates in NHANES.  Since NHANES is a nationally representative survey of the non-institutionalized U.S. population, population estimates are based on the CPS totals for this aspect of the U.S. population.  Use CPS totals for the midpoint of each survey cycle.  CPS-based population tables for NHANES by race/ethnicity, gender and age are located at: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nhanes/response_rates_CPS.htm.