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 from 2016 to 2022. Data from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) includes counts and rates for the 10 leading primary diagnoses and reasons for visit, stratified by patient and hospital characteristics. Rankings were identified using weighted 2022 data and assessed in prior years.

Use Cases

• Analyzing trends in visit counts and rates by Year and Subgroup for the 10 leading diagnoses.
• Comparing the reliability of national estimates using the Reliable flag and Standard Error columns.
• Assessing statistical significance of trends by calculating confidence intervals using Lower 95% CI and Upper 95% CI.
• Ranking primary diagnoses or reasons for visit by Year using the Leading 10 Ranking and Measure columns.

Strengths

• Data covers a 7-year time range from 2016 to 2022.
• Includes statistical reliability indicators like Standard Error and 95% confidence intervals.
• Nationally representative estimates derived from a survey of hospitals in all 50 U.S. states and D.C.

Limitations

• Row count and total dataset size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.

Provenance

Source

National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) via data.cdc.gov.

Collection Method

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

Time Range

2016-2022

Freshness

Last updated 2025-04-21 16:19:24; freshness should be verified.

Geography

United States (all 50 states and the District of Columbia).