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NEW YORK (AP) — Would you agree to take a public health survey with 75 questions on it?
What if it had as many as 1,200 potential questions?
As you might expect, people were much more likely to agree to take the shorter one. And that's what it looked like nearly 60 years ago, when the government launched what would become the most influential survey aimed at monitoring the nation's public health.
But now, the National Health Interview Survey has mushroomed along with the government and its interests. It takes the average family more than 90 minutes to complete it.
Thirty percent of the people who are asked to take the survey are refusing to do so. And that's raising concerns that the survey -- which is conducted in people's homes -- has become too big.
It won't be easy to trim it down. There are bureaucratic obstacles -- along with appeals from researchers who want more questions asked, not fewer.
Census Bureau workers conduct the survey every year on behalf of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Somewhere around 50,000 people answer the questions each year.
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APPHOTO NYCD101: FILE - This combination of file photos shows the HealthCare.gov website on Oct. 6, 2015; students in an early morning running program at an elementary school in Chula Vista, Calif., on March 14, 2014; an electronic cigarette in Chicago on April 23, 2014; an overweight man with a shirt patterned with the U.S. flag in New York on Thursday, May 8, 2014. When the government launched what would become most influential survey to monitor the nation's public health 60 years ago, there were just 75 questions, and 95 percent of those asked agreed to sit for it. There are now 1,200 potential questions, and the average family takes more than 90 minutes to answer them. The refusal rate has gone up, as well: Thirty percent are refusing to take part. That has raised concerns that the survey has gotten too big.(AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, Gregory Bull, Nam Y. Huh, Mark Lennihan, Files) (30 Oct 2015)
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