Jekel J F
Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06510.
J Clin Epidemiol. 1990;43(3):261-6. doi: 10.1016/0895-4356(90)90006-b.
I am always impressed at the wealth of interesting and useful information available from the NCHS, if one knows where to look. The Center tries to adapt to the changing needs of the potential users of their data, including health planners and policy analysts, and academicians. This is illustrated by the increasing emphasis on medical care utilization, especially in long term care, on disease prevention and health promotion issues and on international comparisons. Clinical investigators should be familiar with the NCHS reports, if only to avoid duplication of effort. But beyond that, the information they present can be used to develop hypotheses, estimate variances for sample size determinations, and provide useful model instruments and methods. Beyond that, the NCHS does not analyze and report exhaustively on these data, if only because of lack of resources, so that it makes most of these data available for further research at a nominal charge. Many doctoral dissertations have been based on these tapes as the primary data source for detailed content analysis and/or for methodologic innovation.
如果知道去哪里查找，美国国家卫生统计中心（NCHS）提供的丰富有趣且实用的信息总会给我留下深刻印象。该中心努力适应其数据潜在用户不断变化的需求，这些用户包括卫生规划人员、政策分析师和学者。对医疗服务利用情况的日益重视，尤其是长期护理方面，对疾病预防和健康促进问题以及国际比较的重视，都体现了这一点。临床研究人员应该熟悉NCHS的报告，哪怕只是为了避免重复劳动。但除此之外，报告中呈现的信息可用于提出假设、估算样本量确定时的方差，并提供有用的模型工具和方法。除此之外，NCHS并不会对这些数据进行详尽的分析和报告，这仅仅是因为资源有限，所以它以名义收费的方式将大部分此类数据提供给大家用于进一步研究。许多博士论文都以这些磁带作为详细内容分析和/或方法创新的主要数据源。
