DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.15279347
title: BRFSS 2020 Heart Disease Dataset(Cleaned Version)

description: Originally, the dataset come from the CDC and is a major part of the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), which conducts annual telephone surveys to gather data on the health status of U.S. residents. As the CDC describes: "Established in 1984 with 15 states, BRFSS now collects data in all 50 states as well as the District of Columbia and three U.S. territories. BRFSS completes more than 400,000 adult interviews each year, making it the largest continuously conducted health survey system in the world.". The most recent dataset (as of February 15, 2022) includes data from 2020. It consists of 401,958 rows and 279 columns. The vast majority of columns are questions asked to respondents about their health status, such as "Do you have serious difficulty walking or climbing stairs?" or "Have you smoked at least 100 cigarettes in your entire life? [Note: 5 packs = 100 cigarettes]". 

To improve the efficiency and relevance of our analysis, we removed certain attributes from the original BRFSS dataset. Many of the 279 original attributes included administrative codes, metadata, or survey-specific variables that do not contribute meaningfully to heart disease prediction—such as respondent IDs, timestamps, state-level identifiers, and detailed lifestyle questions unrelated to cardiovascular health. By focusing on a carefully selected subset of 18 attributes directly linked to medical, behavioral, and demographic factors known to influence heart health, we streamlined the dataset. This not only reduced computational complexity but also improved model interpretability and performance by eliminating noise and irrelevant information. 

Below is a description of the features collected for each patient:




#
Feature
Description




1
HeartDisease
Respondents that have ever reported having coronary heart disease (CHD) or myocardial infarction (MI)


2
BMI
Body Mass Index (BMI)


3
Smoking
Have you smoked at least 100 cigarettes in your entire life? [Note: 5 packs = 100 cigarettes]


4
AlcoholDrinking
Heavy drinkers (adult men having more than 14 drinks per week and adult women having more than 7 drinks per week


5
Stroke
(Ever told) (you had) a stroke?


6
PhysicalHealth
Now thinking about your physical health, which includes physical illness and injury, for how many days during the past 30


7
MentalHealth
Thinking about your mental health, for how many days during the past 30 days was your mental health not good?


8
DiffWalking
Do you have serious difficulty walking or climbing stairs?


9
Sex
Are you male or female?


10
AgeCategory
Fourteen-level age category


11
Race
Imputed race/ethnicity value


12
Diabetic
(Ever told) (you had) diabetes?


13
PhysicalActivity
Adults who reported doing physical activity or exercise during the past 30 days other than their regular job


14
GenHealth
Would you say that in general your health is...


15
SleepTime
On average, how many hours of sleep do you get in a 24-hour period?


16
Asthma
(Ever told) (you had) asthma?


17
KidneyDisease
Not including kidney stones, bladder infection or incontinence, were you ever told you had kidney disease?


18
SkinCancer
(Ever told) (you had) skin cancer?