As CDC redesigns annual health survey, it removes questions about disabilities — SkimNews
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- CDC's National Center for Health Statistics proposed in August 2025 to overhaul the National Health Interview Survey—collecting Americans' health data since 1957—by cutting it from 482 questions to 150 and removing items on hearing aids, fatigue, cognition, and mobility supports like wheelchairs and scooters.
- HHS declined to explain why disability-tracking questions were struck but said the redesign was driven by lowering data collection costs; the trimmed survey will reach roughly 25,000 households by mail.
- CDC division director Stephen Blumberg acknowledged in a 2025 memo footnote that the redesign "does not provide the desired depth of information on... functioning and disability... and chronic conditions" required by the survey's authorizing legislation.
- CDC statisticians' research found the current survey already potentially misses 75% of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, and researchers say the redesign will widen that gap rather than close it.
- The Arc CEO Katy Neas called the changes a "head-scratcher," warning that without trusted government data, health outcomes for disabled Americans cannot improve.
- Syracuse sociology professor Scott Landes, who has multiple disabilities, published a 2024 study using NHIS data showing people with "self-care disability" had the highest mortality rates of any disability category—making precise data collection critical.
- University of Kansas disability scholar Jean Hall framed the redesign as part of a broader pattern from the Trump administration targeting disabled people through layoffs and rolled-back community-living protections.
Why it matters: More than 25% of Americans have a disability, and people with intellectual and developmental disabilities face significantly higher rates of heart disease, diabetes, and obesity—the very chronic disease burden Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has pledged to reduce; gutting disability questions from a 68-year-old national survey would strip researchers and policymakers of the evidence base needed to target resources at the population with the highest mortality rates.
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