Health Statistics: Past and Present

This month marks the 25th anniversary of the National Health Survey Act, the landmark legislation in the recent development of national health-information sources. The Act made possible the design and continuing operation of a series of sample surveys, collectively called the National Health Survey and administered by the National Center for Health Statistics, which were intended to elicit data from a society in which the infectious diseases were no longer the paramount threat to life and health.In authorizing the National Health Survey in 1956 the Congress continued an effort that predates the nation's founding. The earliest American settlements kept . . .