Description
HOSPNUM reports the number of times the person was in a hospital overnight during the past 12 months. Only persons who reported being patients in a hospital overnight during that period (see HOSPNGHT) answered this question. In the earlier question, respondents were prompted not to include overnight stays in the emergency room and to include any new mothers and/or babies who were hospitalized for the baby's birth.
The codebook for the 2001-forward public use data includes the comment, "Some respondents reported a large number of hospitalizations and/or hospital nights; these cases have not been edited for reasonableness."
