The Household Pulse Survey began in 2020 to measure how the coronavirus pandemic and other emergent issues are impacting households across the country from a social and economic perspective.
The HPS also asks about core demographic household characteristics (including sexual orientation and gender identity), as well as the following topics:
- Access to infant formula
- Children’s mental health treatment
- COVID-19 vaccinations and long COVID symptoms and impact
- Use of antivirals to treat COVID-19
- Education, specifically K-12 enrollment
- Childcare arrangements
- Employment
- Food sufficiency
- Housing security
- Household spending, including energy expenditures and consumption
- Inflation concerns and changes in behavior due to increasing prices
- Physical and mental health
- Feelings of pressure to move from rental home
- Transportation, including behavioral changes related to the cost of gas
- Health insurance coverage (including Medicaid)
- Shortage of critical products
- Impact of living through natural disasters