Table 2.

Weighted Descriptive Statistics of Analytic Variables, NHIS 1997–2014 ^a

	All	White Men	Black Men	Hispanic Men	White Women	Black Women	Hispanic Women
Self-rated health (%)
Excellent	29.85	32.30	28.14	30.45	29.51	22.72	26.26
Very good	31.87	32.87	27.73	29.13	33.31	27.66	28.13
Good	26.05	24.15	28.79	29.02	25.40	30.77	30.58
Fair	9.17	7.84	11.71	9.08	8.76	14.38	11.83
Poor	3.06	2.85	3.63	2.33	3.04	4.48	3.20
Psychological distress b
Mean (standard deviation)	2.39 (3.79)	2.10 (3.50)	2.11 (3.70)	1.93 (3.57)	2.64 (3.89)	3.77 (4.17)	2.84 (4.36)
BMI (%)
< 18.5 (Underweight)	1.06	0.32	0.36	0.15	1.99	1.10	1.17
18.5 – 24.9 (Normal weight)	33.88	28.80	28.03	23.34	42.72	25.73	33.41
25 – 29.9 (Overweight)	33.38	41.64	37.03	41.59	25.34	27.95	29.60
≥ 30 (Obese)	22.69	22.72	25.79	24.59	19.79	33.07	24.61
Missing	8.99	6.53	8.79	10.36	10.17	12.15	11.30
Drink (%)
Yes	62.99	71.03	57.90	65.88	62.27	43.90	42.95
No	35.29	27.12	39.53	32.10	36.26	54.15	55.80
Missing	1.72	1.85	2.58	2.02	1.47	1.94	1.26
Smoke (%)
Yes	20.99	23.70	25.36	19.61	20.43	17.81	10.10
No	78.44	75.68	73.69	79.84	79.08	81.50	89.52
Missing	0.57	0.62	0.95	0.55	0.49	0.69	0.38
Age
Mean (standard deviation)	45.98 (17.71)	46.62 (17.41)	42.03 (16.38)	38.81 (15.10)	48.41 (18.25)	43.56 (17.15)	40.71 (16.16)
Nativity (%)
Native-born	87.68	95.36	89.22	40.29	95.23	90.94	41.63
Foreign-born	12.25	4.58	10.68	59.48	4.73	8.97	58.23
Missing	0.07	0.05	0.10	0.23	0.04	0.09	0.15
Region (%)
Northeast	18.45	19.18	15.44	13.66	19.76	17.26	15.08
Midwest	24.83	28.72	18.29	9.43	28.48	18.63	8.29
South	37.01	33.90	57.61	36.00	33.99	56.82	35.84
West	19.70	18.21	8.67	40.90	17.76	7.29	40.78
Education (%)
No diploma	15.81	11.50	19.98	38.77	11.05	20.04	37.87
High school	28.74	28.62	33.00	26.28	29.24	28.97	25.06
Some college	29.76	29.29	30.08	22.41	31.68	33.18	24.43
College graduate	25.02	30.08	15.98	11.14	27.49	16.90	11.50
Missing	0.67	0.52	0.96	1.40	0.54	0.90	1.14
Employment status (%)
Employed	63.31	70.11	63.87	76.63	57.26	57.90	53.05
Unemployed	3.89	3.50	8.16	5.79	2.63	6.69	5.34
Not in labor force	32.67	26.30	27.70	17.48	40.00	35.20	41.49
Missing	0.12	0.09	0.27	0.10	0.11	0.22	0.12
Poverty (%)
At or above poverty line	73.69	78.67	68.74	68.35	75.11	59.38	61.44
Below poverty line	10.13	6.34	14.99	16.62	7.91	22.35	21.59
Missing	16.18	15.00	16.27	15.03	16.98	18.28	16.97
Health insurance coverage (%)
Not covered	83.95	86.92	76.50	60.02	89.56	81.22	66.48
Covered	12.76	22.64	39.56	10.15	18.08	33.11	15.67
Missing	0.37	0.32	0.86	0.42	0.29	0.70	0.41

^aStatistics are calculated based on 505,116 respondents in the “sample adult files” for psychological distress, smoking, and drinking, and on 1,108,950 respondents in the person files for all other variables.

^bBased on the raw (i.e. without log transformation) Kessler-6 scale.