AARC Supports NCHS Funding

February 21, 2008

Ensuring adequate funding for the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) received AARC support recently, as the Association signed on to a “Friends of NCHS” letter headed to key members of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies.

The letter asks the subcommittee to support an FY 2009 funding level of at least $125 million. This represents an $11 million increase over FY 2008 and would put the agency on the path to $175 million by 2013.

According to the NCHS, this level of funding would enable the center to allocate:

• $4 million per year to help states automate birth and death records collection, improving timeliness and security of data.
• $3 million per year to support new extramural research grants.
• $1 million per year to support new regional, state, and local data collection.
• $400,000 per year to support web site redevelopment to improve online data access and research tools.
• $250,000 per year to support outreach to help patients, policymakers, researchers, public health practitioners, and health care providers use data in decision-making.

Housed within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the NCHS provides critical data on all aspects of the health care system by collecting and analyzing data for other agencies, including the National Institutes of Health.

Data collection activities include programs such as the National Health And Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), which studies major nutrition, infection, environmental, and chronic health conditions. Additional funding is needed to ensure the center can continue with over sampling of minority populations, an aspect of NHANES considered crucial to better understanding health disparities.