The data collection for the National Household Sample Survey – PNAD 2008 will start this week, in about 150 thousand households distributed among all the Brazilian states. Besides the topics surveyed every year, in 2008, PNAD will have a special health supplement, as a result of a partnership with the Ministry of Health. The supplement will cover topics such as the access to healthcare and medication, women’s health, health insurance, violence and traffic accidents, physical activity and smoking. A staff of about 2,500 interviewers will participate in the collection, which is expected to finish in December. The time estimated for each interview is one hour and a half and the results of PNAD 2008 will be released next year.

The health supplement of PNAD has 163 questions aimed at revealing the health conditions of household members, the registration of households in the family health unit, the existence of illnesses such as high blood pressure, asthma, diabetes, depression, cirrhosis, and others, and also health insurance coverage, its cost, access to health services, the number of medical appointments per year, the use of steady medication, the free access to medicines, dentist’s appointments, vaccination, hospitalizations and home healthcare.

In terms of women’s health, PNAD will gather information about mammography, the examination applied to detect HPV uterine cancer, and others. Concerning the health conditions of household members, there are also ten questions about violence and car accidents and sedentariness (watching TV, using the computer or playing videogame for hours).  Other topics covered by PNAD 2008 will be the characteristics of physical mobility and risky factors to health, including questions about the capacity to perform household tasks (such as lifting heavy objects, climbing up ladders, pushing tables) and the practice of physical exercises or sports. In the chapter about smoking, there are questions directed at the everyday smoker, at the occasional smoker and the ex-smoker concerning tobacco products which emit smoke (cigarettes, cigars, cigarillos) and those which do not (rape, chewing tobacco, etc.) 

A third of the households in the PNAD sample (about 150 thousand) will answer the Special Smoking Survey (PETAB), which is conducted in 15 other countries. In PETAB, smoking will be analyzed more deeply, through 91 questions about smoking habits, attempts at quitting and the methods used for it, passive smoking, exposition to the tobacco advocating media, and many other topics. 

The basic PNAD 2008 survey, with 251 questions, will investigate the characteristics of households, household members, migration, education, labor and income, child labor and fertility, inquiring, for example, about the number of rooms in a household, the existence of services of water supply, sewage system, garbage collection, electricity, mobile and conventional telephony, and the existing durable goods (stove, refrigerator, washing machine, personal computer with Internet access). PNAD 2008 will investigate, for the first time, the possession of DVD appliances and the existence of cars and motorcycles in the household.

To show the characteristics of household members, there are questions about color and race, state of origin and years of schooling.  In the section about child labor, some questions refer to the working activities of children and teenagers, their income and performing of household tasks. In the chapter about labor and income of household members, there are questions concerning the number of hours worked, the type of compensation received (by production, amount of work, commission), unemployment, contribution to Social Security, unions and the possession of an employment record card.

From 1967 to 1070, PNAD was conducted every three months; in 1971 it became an annual survey. It has always covered the five Brazilian regions, except the rural area of the North Region, which was included in 2004. The PNAD system was created in order to produce information for the study and planning of the socio-economic development of the country. PNAD 2008 has national and international partners: the Ministry of Health, Fiocruz, the National Institute of Cancer, the Secretariat of Health Surveillance, the National Health Surveillance Agency, the World Health Organization, the Pan-American Health Organization, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (JHSPH), the Center for Control and Prevention of Diseases and Philanthropy Bloomberg.