Computer simulation of a mobile examination center

The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), sponsored by the United States centers for disease control and prevention (CDC), uses large custom-built mobile examination centers (MECs) to gather confidential data on the residential population of the United States. The data are used to generate national statistics and standards on health and nutrition for the nation. CDC is also exploring a community-based health examination survey designed to produce health statistics for smaller areas or defined populations, tentatively called the Community Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (CHANES), which would consist of a smaller self-contained MEC. We describe a CHANES MEC simulation model built based on actual field data. The model is used to demonstrate how layout and staffing decisions could be evaluated for benefit/cost tradeoff analysis.