This report provides some background on the NHANES program,beginning with the first survey cycle in the 1970s and highlighting meaningful changes since its inception. The report then describes the broad design specifications for the 2011-2014 survey cycle, including survey objectives, or domain and precision specifications,and operational requirements unique to NHANES. The report also describes details of the survey design, including the calculation of sampling rates and sample choice methods. Documentation of survey content, or data collection procedures,estimation methods, and methods to assess nonsampling errors are reported elsewhere.
Source: cdc.gov