BACKGROUND The National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) was used to ascertain whether increases in inadequate sleep differentially affected black and white Americans. We tested the hypothesis that prevalence estimates of inadequate sleep were consistently greater among blacks, and that temporal changes have affected these two strata differentially. METHODS NHIS is an ongoing cross-sectional st...

OBJECTIVES This report examines the comparability between the rates of inpatient procedures for persons aged 65 and over using the National Hospital Discharge Survey (NHDS) and Medicare claims data. METHODS The estimates in this report are based on data from NHDS and Medicare claims submitted by hospital providers for inpatient stays among Part A fee-for-service Medicare beneficiaries aged 65...

BACKGROUND Access to direct-to-consumer genetic testing services has increased in recent years. However, disparities in knowledge and awareness of these services are not well documented. We examined awareness of genetic testing services by rural/urban and racial/ethnic status. METHODS Analyses were conducted using pooled cross-sectional data from 4 waves (2011-2014) of the Health Information ...

BACKGROUND Effectively reducing cardiovascular disease disparities requires identifying and reducing disparities in risk factors. Improved understanding of hypertension disparities is critical. METHODS Cross-sectional analysis of nationally representative samples of black and white adults 20 years and older who participated in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 1999...

How many imputations are sufficient in multiple imputations? The answer given by different researchers varies from as few as 2 - 3 to as many as hundreds. Perhaps no single number of imputations would fit all situations. In this study, η, the minimally sufficient number of imputations, was determined based on the relationship between m, the number of imputations, and ω, the standard error of im...

PURPOSE Staphylococcus aureus is a common cause of invasive infections, yet most assessments of prevalence are based on health care-based samples. We computed population-based estimates of nasal carriage of S aureus and risk factors for carriage, as well as population-based estimates of nasal carriage of methicillin-resistant S aureus (MRSA). METHODS We used the National Health and Nutrition ...

The belief that patients seen in hospital outpatient departments are sicker than those patients seen by private practice physicians is examined in this article. A large scale data set developed by Robert Mendenhall at the University of Southern California and modeled on the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NAMCS) is used for secondary analysis. Differences in case-mix complexity were fo...

Researchers have long viewed large, longitudinal studies as essential for understanding chronic illness and generally superior to cross-sectional studies. In this study, we show that (1) age-specific arthritis prevalence in the longitudinal Health and Retirement Study (HRS) from the United States has risen sharply since its inception in 1992, and (2) this rise is almost surely spurious. In peri...