Objectives

This report presents both age-adjusted and unadjusted statistics from the 2009 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) on selected health measures for children under age 18, classified by sex, age, race, Hispanic origin, family structure, parent education, family income, poverty status, health insurance coverage, place of residence, region, and current health status. The topics covered are asthma, allergies, learning disability, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), prescription medication use, respondent-assessed health status, school days missed due to illness or injury, usual place of health care, time since last contact with a health care professional, selected measures of health care access and utilization, and dental care. New in 2009--Data on food and skin allergies, previously combined in "other allergies," are presented separately in this report.

Data source

NHIS is a multistage probability sample survey conducted annually by interviewers of the U.S. Census Bureau for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics and is representative of the civilian noninstitutionalized population of the United States. Data are collected for all family members during face-to-face interviews with adults present at the time of interview. Additional information about children is collected for one randomly selected child per family in face-to-face interviews with an adult proxy respondent familiar with the child's health.

Selected highlights

In 2009, most U.S. children aged 17 and under had excellent or very good health (84%). However, 8% of children had no health insurance coverage, and 5% of children had no usual place of health care. Fourteen percent of children had ever been diagnosed with asthma. An estimated 8% of children aged 3-17 had a learning disability, and an estimated 9% of children had ADHD.