The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) announces the release of two new, nationally representative long-term care data sets, the 2004 National Nursing Home Survey (NNHS) and the National Nursing Assistant Survey (NNAS).
The NNHS is a periodic survey providing data on nursing homes, nursing home residents, and their care. New features of the 2004 NNHS included expanded content on facilities; staffing; quality of care, and resident medical outcomes (e.g., medications, emergency department use, and hospitalizations), as well as the capability to link to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Minimum Data Set. Data are available for 13,600 patients in 1,174 facilities.
The NNAS is the first national probability sample of certified nursing assistants working in nursing homes. Designed as a supplement to NNHS and sponsored by the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, the NNAS explores the factors that may influence the direct care workforce shortage in long-term care. Telephone interviews were conducted with 3,017 nursing assistants from 582 nursing homes. The interview included questions about recruitment, education, training and certification, job history, family life, management and supervision, client relations, organizational commitment and job satisfaction, workplace environment, work-related injuries, and demographics. The survey’s rich potential for exploratory analyses is enhanced by the ability to link NNAS with the NNHS. For data files and documentation for both surveys, see: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nnhs.htm.
A report describing the development of the NNAS is available at: http://aspe.hhs.gov/daltcp/reports/2006/NNASintro.htm.
The NNHS is one of a family of surveys known collectively as the National Health Care Surveys. For more information on the long term care, inpatient care, ambulatory surgery, and ambulatory medical care components of the National Health Care Surveys, please visit www.cdc.gov/nchs/nhcs.htm
