The federal government's official scorekeeper for the nation's health.
NCHS is the federal government's main health statistics agency. It records every birth and death and runs the national surveys that tell us how healthy the country is.
NCHS has been flat-funded for years as survey response rates fall, the links between its data and other agencies' data are slow and built one project at a time, and its protections haven't kept pace with a riskier political environment.
Keep NCHS staffed and funded, and insulate its statistical releases from interference, with the protections drafted as freestanding law.
Move NCHS into the reauthorized AHRQ with its name, methods, and cooperative relationships intact.
Establish multi-year funding for NCHS modernization and national governance for the birth and death records system.
Give NCHS a clear mandate and dedicated funding to integrate new data sources with its traditional surveys.