The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is the federal government's principal health statistics agency.

Data are collected from birth and death records, medical records, interview surveys, and through direct physical exams and laboratory testing. The statistics are used, in part, to:

• document the health status of the population and of important subgroups;
• identify disparities in health status and use of health care by race/ethnicity, socio-economic status, region, and other population characteristics;
• monitor trends in health status and health care delivery;
• identify health problems;
• support biomedical and health services research;
• provide information for making changes in public policies and programs; and
• evaluate the impact of health policies and programs

NCHS's site includes Fact Sheets, one- and two-page documents in pdf format. They are broken down into two main groups, data sheets for the survey systems (i.e., National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, National Health Care Survey, National Health Interview Survey, and National Vital Statistics System); and fact sheets on specific health topics (i.e., Alzheimer's Disease, asthma, birth defects, cancer, child health, health insurance and access to care, heart disease mortality by state, injuries, older adult health, racial and ethnic disparities, teenage pregnancy, etc.).

Of particular interest to journalists looking for local statistics is NCHS's Fastats. This site provides quick access to statistics on public health issues and is organized alphabetically for the 50 states and U.S. territories. There are an additional 138 topics beyond the 50 states -- from accidents/unintentional injuries, ADHD, adolescent health, AIDS/HIV to smoking, stroke, suicide/self-inflicted injury, surgery, Whooping Cough, women's health, work-related injury/occupational injury. Links are provided to publications that include the statistics presented, to sources of more data and to related web pages.

NCHS also has information on their other initiatives including:

• Aging
• AIDS
• Asthma Data on Demand
• Classification of Diseases
• GIS and Public Health
• Healthy People 2000
• Healthy People 2010
• Injury Data and Resources
• Nutrition Monitoring
• Minority Health and Grants
• Standard Vital Statistics Certificate Revisions
• NCHS Definitions
• Finding and Using Health Statistics: A Self-Study Course
• Statistical Export and Tabulation System (SETS)