1996 National Hospital Discharge Survey

Warning - Data use Restrictions!
Read Carefully before Using

The Public Health Service Act (Section 308 (d) ) provides that the data collected by the National
Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), may be
used only for the purpose of health statistical reporting and analysis.

Any effort to determine the identity of any reported case is prohibited by this law.

NCHS does all it can to assure that the identity of data subjects cannot be disclosed.  All direct
identifiers, as well as any characteristics that might lead to identification, are omitted from the
data set.  Any intentional identification or disclosure of a person or establishment violates the
assurances of confidentiality given to the providers of the information.  Therefore, users will:

1.  Use the data in this data set for statistical reporting and analysis only.

2.  Make no use of the identity of any person or establishment discovered inadvertently and
advise the Director, NCHS, of any such discovery.

3.  Not link this data set with individually identifiable data from other NCHS on non-NCHS
data sets,

By using these data, you signify your agreement to comply with the above-stated statutorily
based requirements.

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The 1996 NHDS  dataset is located in:
ftp://ftp.cdc.gov/pub/Health_Statistics/NCHS/Datasets/NHDS/nhds96
The documentation files for the 1996 NHDS dataset are located in:
ftp://ftp.cdc.gov/pub/Health_Statistics/NCHS/Dataset_Documentation/NHDS

The dataset and documentation files listed below have been compressed into two separate files.
To load and expand them, use a ZIP extraction program (such as Winzip) to install this data in a
directory (folder) on your hard drive.

Size (bytes)
File Name                   File Description         Compressed Uncompressed

NHDS96.ZIP                   NHDS dataset file        5,038,872   23,406,664
NHDS1996.pdf                NHDS documentation file

The dataset file (NHDS96) will expand to the following ASCII file:
NHDS96.ASC                 


The population files to accompany this 1996 NHDS file documentation are in Lotus 1-2-3

 File Name                  File Description

APPC_A96.WK4        Estimates of the Civilian Population of the United States,
                                    by Sex, Age Group, Geographic Region, and Race, July 1, 1996
                                    (referred to in the documentation as TABLE _A.WK4)

APPC_B96.WK4        (Estimates of the Civilian Population of the United States,
                                     by Sex, Age Group, and Geographic Region, July 1, 1996
                                    (referred to in the documentation as TABLE_B.WK4)

APPC_C96.WK4        (Estimates of the Civilian Population of the United States,
                                     by Age, Sex, and Race, July 1, 1996
                                    (referred to in the documentation as TABLE_C.WK4)


CAUTION - BECAUSE THE NHDS IS A SAMPLE SURVEY, THE APPLICATION OF WEIGHTS TO 
THE SAMPLE DATA IS NEEDED IN ORDER TO PRODUCE NATIONAL ESTIMATES OF 
INPATIENT HOSPITAL UTILIZATION STATISTICS.

For questions, suggestions, or comments concerning NHDS data, please contact the National Hospital 
Discharge Survey at (301) 458-4321.  These and other survey data are also available on CD-ROM and 
public use data tape, as well as in published summaries.  For additional information on NCHS data 
products, contact the:

Data Dissemination Branch, NCHS
6525 Belcrest Rd.
Hyattsville, MD 20782
Tel: (301) 458-INFO
E-mail: nchsquery@cdc.gov
Internet: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/default.htm