U.S. Emergency Department Visit Estimates for Leading Diagnoses 2016-2022

The National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NHAMCS) provides nationally representative estimates of emergency department visits. Data from 2016 to 2022 include counts and rates for the 10 leading primary diagnoses and reasons for visit, stratified by patient and hospital characteristics. The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) collects this data from nonfederal, general, and short-stay hospitals across all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Use Cases

• Analyze trends in the 10 leading primary diagnoses across the 2016-2022 time range to identify shifts in public health burdens.
• Compare emergency department visit rates stratified by selected patient characteristics such as age or gender for specific reasons for visit.
• Model the relationship between hospital characteristics and the frequency of visits for top-ranked diagnosis categories using weighted national estimates.

Strengths

• Nationally representative estimates derived from data collected across all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.
• Provides a 7-year time series from 2016 to 2022 for analyzing longitudinal trends in emergency care.
• Data is stratified by selected patient and hospital characteristics, enabling subgroup analysis.
• Includes rankings for the 10 leading primary diagnoses and reasons for visit, identifying key areas of focus.

Limitations

• Dataset provides aggregated estimates and counts, not individual patient-level visit records, limiting granular analysis.
• The 10 leading categories are identified using weighted 2022 data and applied retrospectively, which may not reflect the true top categories for prior years.
• Specific sample sizes, row counts, and column definitions for the underlying microdata are not provided in the description.

Provenance

Source

National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), U.S. Department of Health & Human Services.

Collection Method

Collected through the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NHAMCS) from nonfederal, general, and short-stay hospitals.

Time Range

2016 to 2022.

Freshness

Data is updated annually, with the latest metadata update in April 2025 covering through 2022.

Geography

United States, including all 50 states and the District of Columbia.