The National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) is a survey conducted by the

National Center for Health Statistics The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) is a U.S. government agency that provides statistical information to guide actions and policies to improve the public health of the American people. It is a unit of the Centers for Disease Control ...

division of the

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is the National public health institutes, national public health agency of the United States. It is a Federal agencies of the United States, United States federal agency under the United S ...

to understand trends related to fertility, family structure, and demographics in the United States.

History and details

The National Survey of Family Growth is conducted in five-year cycles. In each cycle, surveys are administered via personal interviews with people at homes. The interviewees generally comprise only the civilian, non-institutionalized population. The cycles so far have been: * Cycle 1, started 1973 * Cycle 2, started 1976 * Cycle 3, started 1982 * Cycle 4, started 1988 * Cycle 5, started 1995 * Cycle 6, started 2002 * 2006–2010 NSFG * 2011–2013 NSFG * 2013–2015 NSFG * 2015–2019 NSFG While Cycles 1–5 surveyed only women, Cycle 6 and later surveyed both men and women and used households as the unit of analysis. Cycle 6 surveyed 12,571 respondents 15–44 years of age: 7,643 females and 4,928 males. The 2006–2010 NSFG surveyed 22,682 interviews: over 10,000 interviews with men and more than 12,000 interviews with women. In 2006, the NSFG shifted from periodic surveys to continuous interviewing. For Cycle 6 onward, the surveys were conducted in person by female interviewers who are hired and managed by the

University of Michigan Institute for Social Research The Institute for Social Research (ISR) is the largest academic social research and survey organization in the world, established in 1949. ISR includes more than 300 scientists from a variety of academic disciplines – including political scien ...

. The survey samples are intended to be nationally representative but not necessarily representative at subnational levels (such as individual states, ethnicities, or religions). NSFG resumed data collection in January 2022 with a multi-mode, continuous survey design. Under this survey design, data collection will continue through December 2029.

Data

For the survey cycles that have been completed, data is available both in the form of

portable document format Portable document format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating syste ...

summaries and as full data files. In addition, program statements are available in SAS, SPSS, and STATA. Key statistics are also browsable online. NSFG data is also mirrored on the website of the

University of Michigan The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...

's Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research.

Reception and impact

Claims

Data collected by the NSFG are used as follows: * By scholars in the

behavioral science Behavioural science is the branch of science concerned with Human behavior, human behaviour.Hallsworth, M. (2023). A manifesto for applying behavioural science. ''Nature Human Behaviour'', ''7''(3), 310-322. While the term can technically be ap ...

s (e.g.,

sociology Sociology is the scientific study of human society that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of Interpersonal ties, social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. The term sociol ...

demography Demography () is the statistical study of human populations: their size, composition (e.g., ethnic group, age), and how they change through the interplay of fertility (births), mortality (deaths), and migration. Demographic analysis examine ...

, and

economics Economics () is a behavioral science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interac ...

) to study

marriage Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognised union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children (if any), and b ...

divorce Divorce (also known as dissolution of marriage) is the process of terminating a marriage or marital union. Divorce usually entails the canceling or reorganising of the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage, thus dissolving the M ...

fertility Fertility in colloquial terms refers the ability to have offspring. In demographic contexts, fertility refers to the actual production of offspring, rather than the physical capability to reproduce, which is termed fecundity. The fertility rate ...

, and

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

life * By scholars in public health to study reproductive, maternal and infant health topics * By agencies of the US

Department of Health and Human Services The United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is a cabinet-level executive branch department of the US federal government created to protect the health of the US people and providing essential human services. Its motto is ...

, to brief senior officials and to inform program decision-making in research programs and in health and social service programs * By state and local governments to plan health and social service programs * By private-sector research organizations which distribute the information to the public and to policy makers * By the press, to prepare articles on a number of topics related to health and family life

Academic research

The NSFG has been cited in more than 1,300 journal articles, NHCS reports, and book chapters. Research citing the NSFG is concentrated on topics related to family planning, contraception, abortion, and fertility.

References

External links

* {{official website Health informatics Social statistics data Surveys (human research) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Household surveys