The AEA committee on economic statistics, chaired by Robert Moffitt, recently became aware of a proposed redesign of the National Health Interview Survey: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nhis/2018_quest_redesign.htm.

The motivation is to reduce the length of the questionnaire, but there are reasons for serious concern in this proposed change. NCHS is only going to collect information on a randomly sampled adult and a randomly sample child in the household. No information will be obtained on family income, poverty status, family-level demographic information, and public assistance receipt at the family or household level. If these changes are implemented they will seriously impair the usefulness of the NHIS as a data set for the study of public policy on health.  

The public comment period is extremely tight: comments are due March 15, 2016. If you feel strongly about this, send your comment to healthsurveys@cdc.gov.