N.C. Public Health, Health and Human Services
DHHS DPH NSB PNSS Reports and WIC Data

Surveillance Reports and WIC Agreement Data

The North Carolina Nutrition Services Branch of the Division of Public Health maintains three separate surveillance systems to monitor nutrition and physical activity and provides detailed information about these program-based surveillance systems. This website and the related links provide the most recent county-specific data and state data on maternal and child health indicators of nutritional status such as overweight, underweight, anemia, breastfeeding initiation and duration. Additionally, this site provides technical information such as data collection and reporting guidance tools to staff in public health agencies for collecting and reporting information on physical activity and nutrition behaviors.


[+] Expand All Items | [-] Collapse All Items

Pregnancy Nutrition Surveillance System (PNSS)

 PNSS Overview

The North Carolina Pregnancy Nutrition Surveillance System (PNSS) supports the efforts of the Women’s Health and WIC programs providing accurate and timely information on pregnancy risk factors and outcomes of low-income women. The PNSS monitors the prevalence of nutrition problems and behavioral risk factors among women at high risk for adverse pregnancy outcomes who are enrolled in the public health programs. Through annual reports PNSS data is made available for use by public health professionals and other interested groups in evaluating the health status of pregnant women, targeting high-risk groups, and planning interventions - both community and statewide.

CDC discontinued the Pediatric and Pregnancy Nutrition Surveillance Systems (PedNSS and PNSS) at the end of 2012. These program-based surveillance systems monitored the nutritional status of low-income infants, children, and women in federally funded maternal and child health programs. http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/surveillance.html.

North Carolina's Pregnancy Nutrition Surveillance System (PNSS) links data from the WIC program, public maternity clinics, birth certificates and fetal death certificates. These data are collected at the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC Program) and prenatal clinics funded by the Maternal and Child Health Services Block Grant) to the State of North Carolina and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.

The PNSS collects prenatal and postpartum information about these women and outcome information about their infants. North Carolina’s annual PNSS report is usually published about a year after the reported calendar year due to the late availability of the birth/fetal death files. The PNSS report consists of a summary, state profile, facts in brief, detailed graphs, tables, methodology and definitions. Below are the reports for North Carolina.

PNSS Reports

 2010 PNSS Reports

 2009 PNSS Reports

 2008 PNSS Reports

 2007 PNSS Reports

 2006 PNSS Reports

 2005 PNSS Reports

 2004 PNSS Reports

 2003 PNSS Reports

 Pre-2000 PNSS Reports

Pediatric Nutrition Surveillance System (PedNSS)

 PedNSS Overview

The Pediatric Nutrition Surveillance System (PedNSS) is a child-based public health surveillance system that monitors the nutritional status of low income children in federally funded maternal and child health programs. Data on birthweight, short stature, underweight, overweight, anemia, and breastfeeding are collected for children who visit public health clinics for routine care and nutrition services, including education and supplemental food. Data are collected at the clinic level, and then aggregated at the state level and submitted to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for analysis.

The CDC has established a data, trends, and maps website, which provides access to the most recent national data on prevalence data for overweight, breastfeeding initiation and duration for low-income populations and detailed information about the program-based surveillance systems. Also included is training information on reading the data tables, an epidemiologic approach to interpreting the data, and application of the data.

PedNSS Reports

 2011 PedNSS Reports

 2010 PedNSS Reports

 2009 PedNSS Reports

 2008 PedNSS Reports

 2007 PedNSS Reports

 2006 PedNSS Reports

 2005 PedNSS Reports

North Carolina Child Health Assessment and Monitoring Program (NC-CHAMP)

The North Carolina Child Health Assessment and Monitoring Program (NC-CHAMP) is a surveillance system that collects information about the health characteristics of children and adolescents from birth to age 17 in North Carolina. CHAMP is designed to: monitor the status of child health (ages 0–17) and identify child health problems in North Carolina; measure parents’ perspectives on child health issues; provide accurate and valid data to inform evidence-based decisions, strategies, and policies to improve child health; and assess relationships between parent health and child health, and inform family-centered approaches to improve child health.

Detailed data tables, fact sheets, reports and surveillance updates are posted on the State Center for Health Statistics NC-CHAMP Publications page on an annual basis. Data are available for each calendar year starting with 2005. State level estimates are available for a variety of child health measures, tabulated by sex, race, ethnicity and age group.

North Carolina Nutrition and Physical Activity Surveillance System (NC-NPASS)

The purpose of the NC-NPASS is to provide accurate, timely information relevant to child health indicators of nutritional status such as overweight and obesity. NC-NPASS is developed and maintained by the Nutrition Services Branch of the North Carolina Division of Public Health to monitor and track childhood obesity. Because the prevalence of obesity varies dramatically in different North Carolina communities and for different demographic groups, it is important to present these data to monitor trends. Such monitoring can enable health agencies to know where to target resources.

NC-NPASS is maintained by the Nutrition Services Branch of the North Carolina Division of Public Health. NC-NPASS provides data for children seen in Public Health sponsored Women, Infants and Children (WIC) and child health clinics, as well as some school-based health centers.

2010 NC-NPASS Data: Obesity in Children Ages 2 to 4 *

* NC-NPASS data for children ages 2 to 4 are reflective of the population at 185% of the federal poverty level. Approximately 85 to 95% of the children included in the NC-NPASS sample for ages 2 to 4 are WIC participants. Since children are not eligible to participate in WIC once they become 5 years old, the sample size for NC-NPASS data received from the child health clinics was not adequate to calculate county-specific rates for children age 5 and older.

2009 NC-NPASS Data on Childhood Overweight

NC-NPASS provides BMI-for-age Prevalence data on an annual basis for children and youth ages 2 to 18 seen in Public Health sponsored Women, Infants and Children (WIC) and child health clinics, as well as some school-based health centers. Because NC-NPASS data is limited to this group of children and youth, it may not be representative of the county or state population as a whole.

For children ages 2 to 4, the data are reflective of the population at 185% of the federal poverty level. However, NC-NPASS data for ages 5 to 18 is different. Clinics and school-based health centers vary in the extent to which they collect height and weight data, primarily because these measurements are not mandated by federal of state legislation.

Graphs, charts, maps and other resources illustrating the prevalence of overweight children by factors such as age, gender, county-specific BMI, and Hispanic ethnicity.

WIC Agreement Addenda Trend Reports

Agreement Addenda Data


Last Modified: August 3, 2019