Codes and Frequencies
Description
For persons who reported being hospitalized overnight during the previous year (HOSPNGHTD), HOSPNUMD reports the number of different times the person was in a hospital overnight during that period--excluding hospitalizations for deliveries.
Data Collection
HOSPNUMDX is similar to HOSPNUMD, except that the latter variable also includes hospitalizations for deliveries. Both variables are generated variables, which were constructed by NCHS from responses to questions that probed for specific information regarding hospitalization.
See HOSPNGHT and HOSPNUMD for details on the process of gathering information and generating variables on overnight hospitalizations in the the past year.
As follow-up to the initial "hospital probe" questions on whether the person was an inpatient in a hospital during the past 12 months, interviewers asked about hospital delivery for each child less than 1 year old at the time of the interview.
For each infant in the family, the interviewer asked, "Was -- born in a hospital?" If the answer was affirmative, the interviewer asked if this hospitalization was included in the hospitalizations already reported and corrected the responses on overnight hospitalizations, as needed, for both mother and baby.
Additional information collected on the "hospital page" of the survey, which was completed for every overnight hospitalization episode in the past year, supplied additional information that allowed NCHS to exclude deliveries from HOSPNUMDX.
After collecting information on the date of hospital admission, interviewers asked, "How many nights was -- in the hospital?" and "For what condition did -- enter the hospital?" Subsequent prompts on the form directed, "For delivery ask: Was this a normal delivery? If 'No,' ask: What was the matter?" and "For newborn ask: Was the baby normal at birth? If 'No,' ask, What was the matter?" Checkboxes prompted interviewers to mark one of the following: 1 Normal delivery; 2 Normal at birth; 3 No condition; 4 Condition (with space to specify the condition). If a mother's hospitalization record was marked as "Normal delivery" or an infant's hospitalization record was marked "Normal at birth," then that overnight hospitalization record was not counted among the hospital episodes reported in HOSPNUMDX (but was included in HOSPNUMD).
Comparability
HOSPNUMDX is comparable from 1982 through 1996.
While similar information was collected on hospitalizations and deliveries prior to 1982, the pre-1982 NHIS public use files do not include a variable on overnight hospitalization episodes excluding deliveries. After the redesigned version of the NHIS was fielded beginning in 1997, information was not collected on each individual hospitalization episode, so no variable similar to HOSPNUMDX exists for 1997 forward.
Universe
- 1982-1996: All persons.
Availability
- 1982-1996
Weights
- 1982-1996 : PERWEIGHT
