Analysis of five-year trends in self-reported language preference and issues of item non-response among Hispanic persons in a large cross-sectional health survey: implications for the measurement of an ethnic minority population

Table 1 Number of Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) surveys by Hispanic ethnicity and language preference and US Census population estimates for Hispanics, African Americans, and whites by year, 2003-2007

	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007
Number of self-identified Hispanic persons completing BRFSS Spanish language surveys	8,466	9,684	11,471	11,793	12,811
Number of self-identified Hispanic persons in BRFSS	19,652	23,015	25,539	26,432	31,310
Number of self-identified African-American only, non-Hispanic persons in BRFSS	20,684	26,031	27,735	28,772	33,216
Total number of BRFSS surveys	264,684	303,822	356,112	355,710	430,912
US Census estimates for US Hispanic population, 18 years of age and older	26,103,356	27,003,064	27,928,716	28,883,199	29,842,175
US Census estimates for US African-American population, 18 years of age and older	25,663,123	26,074,862	26,475,326	26,907,754	27,361,091
US Census estimates for US white population, 18 years of age and older	177,949,002	179,612,269	181,244,814	182,966,991	184,745,318
US Census estimate for total US population	290,447,644	293,191,511	295,895,897	298,754,819	301,621,157

ISSN: 1478-7954