2019 Health Survey

The HRS 2019 Health Survey was administered to a sub-sample of respondents to gather information about their health care access, health conditions, medications, and food consumption. It includes both novel content and questions that have been asked in previous mail surveys.

The sample for the Health Survey included respondents who (1) were not in the random half-sample assigned to receive the Consumption and Activities Mail Survey (CAMS); (2) were born before 1960; and (3) had already completed a Life History Mail Survey (LHMS). The final sample size was 6,159 respondents. A total of 5,097 respondents returned questionnaires for a response 83%.

The questionnaire covers the following topics: health care access, health conditions, medications, special foods and general comments. The medication contain detailed medication data for each respondent who completed these sections of the questionnaire. The medication data is available as a separate HRS restricted data product: 2019 Health Survey: Medicines and Other Medications.