Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System

The Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) is a United States national health survey that looks at behavioral risk factors. It is run by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and conducted by the individual states. The survey is administered by telephone and is the world's largest such survey.

Description
The BRFSS is a cross-sectional telephone survey conducted by state health departments with technical and methodological assistance provided by the CDC.

Individual states can add their own questions to the survey instrument, which consists of a core set of questions on certain topics like car safety, obesity, or exercise. States get funding from the federal government to administer these questionnaires, and they pay for the additional questions themselves.

The U.S. federal government can then compare states based on the core questions to allocate funding and focus interventions. The states themselves also use the survey results to focus interventions for the public and to decide what is worth their while to focus on.