The latest “Wireless Substitution” reports from the National Center for Health Statistics is now available.
Formal title of the report: Wireless Substitution: Early Release of Estimates From the National Health Interview Survey, January–June 2017.
A second document/report is also available: Wireless Substitution: State-Level Estimates from the National Health Interview Survey, 2016.
From the Report:
Preliminary results from the January–June 2017 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) indicate that the number of American homes with only wireless telephones continues to grow. Source: Wireless Substitution: Estimates From the National Health Interview Survey, January-June 2017 (12/28/2017) via NCHS
More than one-half of American homes (52.5%) had only wireless telephones (also known as cellular telephones, cell phones, or mobile phones) during the first half of 2017—an increase of 3.2 percentage points since the first half of 2016. Nearly three-quarters of all adults aged 25-34 were living in wireless-only households; more than two-thirds (70.7%) of adults renting their homes were living in wireless-only households.
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The percentage of households that are wireless-only and the percentages of adults and children living in wireless-only households have been steadily increasing (Figure). The observed 3.2-percentagepoint increase in the percentage of households that are wireless-only from the first 6 months of 2016 through the first 6 months of 2017 was statistically significant. The 3.0-percentage-point increase for adults and the 2.9- percentage-point increase for children across the same 12-month time period were also significant. However, the increases from the second 6 months of 2016 to the first 6 months of 2017 were not statistically significant for adults (p = 0.09) or children (p = 0.24).
Approximately 3.7% of households had no telephone service (neither wireless nor landline) in the first 6 months of 2017. About 8.4 million adults (3.4%) and 2.9 million children (4.0%) lived in these households. The percentage of adults and children living without any telephone service has increased significantly over the past 3 years.
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area.
He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit.
Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.
