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National Cancer Institute
Health Information National Trends Survey
Part of NCI's Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences

HINTS Briefs

HINTS Briefs provide a snapshot of noteworthy, data-driven research findings. They introduce population-level estimates for specific questions in the survey and summarize significant research findings that are a result of analyzing how certain demographic characteristics influence specific outcomes. Many Briefs summarize research findings from recent peer-reviewed journal articles using HINTS data.

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English Briefs

Brief 25: Picking up the Pace Download Brief in PDF Format
Cover image of Brief 25 Health information seeking and health communication have a significant effect on individuals’ health decisions, health-related behavior, and health outcomes. Data from HINTS have been critical in documenting and tracking these associations and trends in the U.S. population.  To address emerging issues in the field of health communication more quickly while still maintaining the ongoing measurement of trends, HINTS 4 will include five data collection cycles over the course of 3 years. In this HINTS Brief, we discuss the HINTS 4 data collection cycles and the special topic modules that will field only in some cycles.
September 2013
Brief 18: Implementation of HINTS in Puerto Rico Download Brief in PDF Format
Cover image of Brief 18 In 2009, a demonstration project was conducted in Puerto Rico using existing Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) infrastructure to assess the feasibility of adapting the national HINTS survey to a local setting to facilitate local data collection and cancer control planning.
April 2011
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HINTS Data Terms of Use

It is of utmost importance to ensure the confidentiality of survey participants. Every effort has been made to exclude identifying information on individual respondents from the computer files. Some demographic information such as sex, race, etc., has been included for research purposes. NCI expects that users of the data set will adhere to the strictest standards of ethical conduct for the analysis and reporting of nationally collected survey data. It is mandatory that all research results be presented/published in a manner that protects the integrity of the data and ensures the confidentiality of participants.

In order for the Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS) to provide a public-use or another version of data to you, it is necessary that you agree to the following provisions.

  1. You will not present/publish data in which an individual can be identified. Publication of small cell sizes should be avoided.
  2. You will not attempt to link nor permit others to link the data with individually identified records in another database.
  3. You will not attempt to learn the identity of any person whose data are contained in the supplied file(s).
  4. If the identity of any person is discovered inadvertently, then the following should be done;
    1. no use will be made of this knowledge,
    2. the HINTS Program staff will be notified of the incident,
    3. no one else will be informed of the discovered identity.
  5. You will not release nor permit others to release the data in full or in part to any person except with the written approval of the HINTS Program staff.
  6. If accessing the data from a centralized location on a time sharing computer system or LAN, you will not share your logon name and password with any other individuals. You will also not allow any other individuals to use your computer account after you have logged on with your logon name and password.
  7. For all software provided by the HINTS Program, you will not copy, distribute, reverse engineer, profit from its sale or use, or incorporate it in any other software system.
  8. The source of information should be cited in all publications. The appropriate citation is associated with the data file used. Please see Suggested Citations in the Download HINTS Data section of this Web site, or the Readme.txt associated with the ASCII text version of the HINTS data.
  9. Analyses of large HINTS domains usually produce reliable estimates, but analyses of small domains may yield unreliable estimates, as indicated by their large variances. The analyst should pay particular attention to the standard error and coefficient of variation (relative standard error) for estimates of means, proportions, and totals, and the analyst should report these when writing up results. It is important that the analyst realizes that small sample sizes for particular analyses will tend to result in unstable estimates.
  10. You may receive periodic e-mail updates from the HINTS administrators.

NIH… Turning Discovery Into Health®

Health Information National Trends Survey ℠ , HINTS ℠, and the HINTS ℠ logo are service marks of the US Department of Health and Human Services.

HINTS is a service of the National Cancer Institute with support from the Health Communication and Informatics Research Branch of the Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences.