Nearly year-round, the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) participates in the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS)—the world's largest continuously conducted health survey system in the world. The BRFSS is a random telephone survey of non-institutionalized individuals aged 18 or older that is used to track health risks, behaviors, and preventative health practices in the United States. In 1981, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in collaboration with selected states, initiated a telephone-based behavioral risk factor surveillance system to monitor health risk behaviors.