The National Household Survey (NHS) tracks progress in personal disaster preparedness through investigation of the American public's preparedness actions, attitudes, and motivations. FEMA administers the survey in English and Spanish via landline and mobile telephone to a random sampling of approximately 5,000 adult respondents. The survey includes a nationally representative sample as well as hazard-specific oversamples which may include earthquake, flood, wildfire, hurricane, winter storm, extreme heat, tornado, and urban event. FEMA delays publishing the data until approximately the release of the summary results for the subsequent NHS iteration. For example, FEMA published the 2017 data package at approximately the same time as the publication of the 2018 NHS Summary.
Each zip file may include an analysis summary, the survey instrument, raw weighted and unweighted data, aggregated data analysis, and a codebook with weighting overviews.
Raw Data: Datasets may include unedited raw data. As such, users should plan to clean the data as needed prior to analysis.
Citation: Users should cite the date the data was accessed or retrieved from fema.gov. In addition, users must clearly state that "FEMA and the Federal Government cannot vouch for the data or analyses derived from these data after the data have been retrieved from the Agency's website.”