The Data Resource Center for Child and Adolescent Health (DRC), a project of the Child and Adolescent Health Measurement Initiative (CAHMI) and supported through the Health Resources and Services Administration’s (HRSA) Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB), is excited to announce the release of 5-year estimates from the National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH). State, regional, and national estimates for Title V Block Grant National Outcome (NOMs) and Performance Measures (NPMs) are at your fingertips with our Interactive Data Query. This 5-year dataset provides sufficient sample sizes to allow for important subgroup analyses across state and child populations. 

Prevalence: Children’s mental health is now a national emergency, with high prevalence rates for many conditions even before the pandemic¹. New 5-year aggregated data from the National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH) provides robust estimates enabling comparisons across states on prevalence of mental, emotional, developmental or behavioral problems (MEDB). The prevalence of the MEDB composite measure across states ranges from 14.3%-28.2% among children age 3-17 (22.1% nationally), with some indication of higher rates for the 2020 time period (21.8% 2016-2019 vs. 23.2% 2020). 

National Outcome Measure 18: NOM 18 examines whether children needing mental health services receive those services. Looking at 5-year aggregated NSCH data, only 51.7% of children age 3-17 years with depression, anxiety, behavioral or conduct problems received needed treatment or counseling for their condition. This ranged from 36.5%-62.6% across US states. State variations are particularly pronounced among children living in poverty where we find a 56 percentage point difference between the state with the best versus the worst performance (24.2%-80.0%). Search the NOM 18 state data on the DRC Interactive Data Query.  

For more information on children with MEDB, using the NSCH, and ways to leverage the NSCH data to inform evidence-based policies to promote child and adolescent well-being, check out our recent publication and our Health Disparity and Health Equity issue brief.

¹https://www.aap.org/en/advocacy/child-and-adolescent-healthy-mental-development/aap-aacap-cha-declaration-of-a-national-emergency-in-child-and-adolescent-mental-health/

Public use files for the NSCH are available through the U.S. Census Bureau’s NSCH page, and instructions for combining the NSCH datasets are available in the Guide to Multiple-Year Analysis for those who wish to use the 5-year combined data for further analysis. In addition, you should check out the DRC’s crosswalk of variables across the years 2016-2020 to see which data is comparable.

For more information and resources on the NSCH, such as fast facts, guides to topics and questions, survey methodology and instruments, crosswalk of survey items, and more, please visit the DRC NSCH Overview page. There are also numerous resources available at HRSA MCHB’s webpage on the NSCH, including the Five-Year Trends in US Children’s Health and Well-being manuscript. 

If you have any questions, please contact us at info@cahmi.org. If you are a Title V leader, please be sure to indicate this in your request for information. Thank you