Custody transfer plan notes under-representation in database.
It appears that “elderly white men” are not doing their fair share of work to contribute to a national database of body fluids.
The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, a program of the National Center for Health Statistics, revealed the problem in a recent online statement regarding plans to transfer the nation’s database to a private contractor.
“Older white men” are particularly under-represented in the compilation of statistics and details of the collection, which has been in development since the 1960s, officials said.
In fact, it explicitly explains that the federal government lacks sufficient data on white males over 80.
“One of the rarest groups sampled are elderly white men,” the organization explained on its website.
“Sometimes the interviewer goes to a house with the sampling direction: ‘Look for white men, 80 and older.’ If there’s not a white male 80 and older living there, no one is selected from that household,” NHANES said.
The government’s aim in collecting these voluntarily contributed biologic samples is to assess “the prevalence of chronic conditions in the population.”
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