The role of NCHS data systems in the evaluation of intervention and prevention strategies

Intervention and prevention strategies for the U.S.A. for the year 2000 have been broadly defined into 22 priority areas encompassing 332 health objectives. NCHS and its data systems have the major responsibility for providing the data for half of these objectives and assisting in a wide array of other data programmes both within and outside of CDC. This paper describes the process used to arrive at these objectives, highlights a few of them, and presents four examples of objectives NCHS is engaged in tracking: breast cancer mortality, breast examinations, infant mortality and cholesterol levels.