Description

For Sample Adults age 18+ who, without using special equipment, had any difficulty with one or more functional activities (FLANY), and who identified a second problem, not listed on the interviewer-provided flashcard and not one of the other categories available to interviewers for purposes of classifying conditions as a cause of any functional activity limitation (FLNEC2), FLNEC2MO reports the duration, in months, of the "not elsewhere classified condition".

Data on the duration of a limiting "not elsewhere classified condition" were collected via the question, "How long have you had [condition]?" Respondents could answer this open-ended question using the time unit of their choice (i.e., days, weeks, months, years, or since birth). The original responses to the question are reported in two complementary variables, FLNEC2TP (which specifies the time unit) and FLNEC2NO (which reports the number of such units). For the NHIS public use files, the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) recoded the results from these two variables to create two other variables using standard time units: years (FLNEC2Y) and groups of months (FLNEC2MO).

The 1997 forward NHIS Survey Descriptions caution that because the ad hoc classified condition categories (such as a "not elsewhere classified condition" (FLNEC2)) were not included on flashcards given to respondents during the course of the interview, it is possible that weighted frequencies for these conditions may be underestimated. Thus, the NCHS recommends that "these variables should be analyzed with care."

Comparability

Apart from a change in the coding of "unknown" cases, this variable is comparable across years.

Analysts can achieve comparability across all years by combining codes with a common first digit of 9 into a single "unknown" category.

Universe

Availability

• 1997-1998, 2000-2018

Weights

• 1997-1998, 2000-2018 : SAMPWEIGHT