NCHStats

NCHS has put out a new report that presents selected prevalence estimates for five key health behaviors among adults — alcohol use, cigarette smoking, leisure-time physical activity, body mass index, and sufficient sleep.  The report is based on a total of 76,669 completed interviews with a sample of adults aged 18 and over covering the period 2008-2010.

Key Findings from the Report:

• About 6 in 10 (64.9%) U.S. adults were current drinkers in 2008–2010; about 1 in 5 adults (20.9%) were lifetime abstainers.
• About one in five adults (20.2%) were current smokers and over one-half of adults (58.6%) had never smoked cigarettes. Less than one-half of current smokers (45.8%) attempted to quit smoking in the past year.
• Nearly one-half (46.1%) of adults met the federal guidelines for aerobic physical activity, about one-quarter (23.0%) of adults met the federal guidelines for muscle-strengthening physical activity, and about one in five adults (19.4%) met both guidelines.
• About 6 in 10 adults (62.1%) were overweight or obese (BMI ≥ 25), with about 4 in 10 (36.1%) adults being of healthy weight (18.5 ≤ BMI < 25).
• About 7 in 10 adults (69.7%) met the Healthy People 2020 objective for sufficient sleep, defined as at least 8 hours for adults aged 18–21 and at least 7 hours for adults aged 22 and over on
  average during a 24-hour period.

Methods

Data representing the U.S. civilian noninstitutionalized population were collected using computer-assisted personal interviews. NHIS is a general purpose in-person household survey, collecting basic health, health care utilization, and demographic information on all household members with the Family questionnaire. Health behavior questions are asked in the Sample Adult survey component.

Though CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics does not have specific data on tornado deaths, we do have data from our mortality database on deaths from “cataclysmic storms,” which includes tornado deaths (International Classification of Diseases Code X-37). This specific ICD code includes blizzards, hurricanes and tornadoes, but doesn’t separate deaths by tornadoes alone.

Below is a chart from our WONDER database that shows how many deaths occurred under ICD Code X-37 from 1999 to 2010.  There are a few things to observe from these data: First, according the National Oceanic Atmospheric Association, the spike in deaths in 1999 was a result of 93 tornado deaths.  There was also another spike in X-37 deaths which occurred in 2005 during Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita, the notorious storms that devastated the Gulf Coast.  Finally, the 2008 spike in deaths was a result of 125 tornado fatalities that year.

Allergic conditions are among the most common medical conditions affecting children in the United States. An allergic condition is a hypersensitivity disorder in which the immune system reacts to substances in the environment that are normally considered harmless. Food or digestive allergies, skin allergies (such as eczema), and respiratory allergies (such as hay fever) are the most common allergies among children.

NCHS has put out a report that presents recent trends in the prevalence of allergies and differences by selected sociodemographic characteristics for children under age 18 years.

Among children aged 0–17 years, the prevalence of food allergies increased from 3.4% in 1997–1999 to 5.1% in 2009–2011. The prevalence of skin allergies increased from 7.4% in 1997–1999 to 12.5% in 2009–2011. There was no significant trend in respiratory allergies from 1997–1999 to 2009–2011, yet respiratory allergy remained the most common type of allergy among children throughout this period (17% in 2009–2011). Skin allergy prevalence was also higher than food allergy prevalence for each period from 1997–2011

Key Findings from the Report:

• The prevalence of skin allergies decreased with age. In contrast, the prevalence of respiratory allergies increased with age.
• Hispanic children had a lower prevalence of food allergy, skin allergy, and respiratory allergy compared with children of other race or ethnicities. Non-Hispanic black children were more likely to have skin allergies and less likely to have respiratory allergies compared with non-Hispanic white children.
• Food and respiratory allergy prevalence increased with income level. Children with family income equal to or greater than 200% of the poverty level had the highest prevalence rates.

Data source and methods

Prevalence estimates for allergic conditions were obtained from the Health Data Interactive (HDI) table, “Allergic conditions, ages 0–17: U.S., 1997–2011,” available from the Health Data Interactive website. NHIS data were used to estimate the prevalence of allergic conditions for this HDI table.