Feds Seek Input on Extending Kids' Health Survey
Published Date: 12/5/2025
Notice
Summary
The U.S. Census Bureau is asking for public feedback on updates to the National Survey of Children's Health, which collects info about kids' well-being. This survey affects families and health programs and helps improve services for children under 18. Comments are open until February 3, 2026, and there’s no cost to participate—just your voice!
Analyzed Economic Effects
5 provisions identified: 4 benefits, 1 costs, 0 mixed.
NSCH sample increased to 400,000
The 2026 National Survey of Children's Health sample will be about 400,000 addresses, up from 360,000 in 2025. The larger sample is intended to let states and agencies produce reliable child-health estimates in fewer pooled years (for example, more states can expect 1,500 interviews with two years of data).
Nine states will receive oversamples
Nine states (California, Illinois, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Wisconsin) have indicated interest in sponsoring state oversamples for the 2026 NSCH, continuing oversampling used since 2020. Households in those states are more likely to be sampled so state- or region-based estimates for children can be produced with fewer pooled years.
Contact info collected on mail-return screener
The Census will collect respondent name, email address, and phone number on the paper screener questionnaire and a mail-returnable screener card as a test to about 70,000 addresses. The notice says this contact information will be used to encourage households with children to complete the rest of the interview via email and telephone reminders.
Monetary incentives in mailings (mostly $5)
As part of the 2026 NSCH, 90% of initial screener mailings will include a $5 unconditional incentive and 10% will not; about 10,000 households that started the web instrument but did not finish will receive a final web push with a secondary unconditional incentive; eligible paper topical mailings will include an additional $5. Incentives are assigned randomly as in prior cycles.
Estimated respondent burden and time
The Census estimates 122,461 respondents for the collection; households with eligible children will spend about 40–41 minutes total (5 minutes for the screener plus 35–36 minutes for topical questions). The estimated total annual burden is 42,496 hours and the estimated total annual cost to the public is $0. Participation is voluntary.
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