MEPS - sporedata/researchdesigneR GitHub Wiki
General description
The Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) is a national data source that provides extensive nationally-representative estimates of health care use, expenditures, insurance coverage, payment sources, and quality of care for families and individuals, their medical providers, and employers across the United States.
MEPS comprises two major components:
- Household Component (MEPS-HC) - a nationally representative survey of the civilian non-institutionalized population based on questionnaires fielded to individual household members and their medical providers; and
- Insurance Component (MEPS-IC) - collects data from a survey of employers on health insurance plan information (costs and types of workplace health insurance).
Two additional components are:
- Medical Provider Component (MEPS-MPC) is designed to replace or supplement information received from MEPS-HC respondents by collecting data from medical care providers and facilities reported as providing care to persons interviewed in the Household Component.
- Nursing Home Component (MEPS-NHC)
Variable categories
- Employment variables
- Geographic variables
- Demographic variables
- Health status variables
- Access to care variables
- Health insurance variables
- Disability days indicators
- Income and tax filing variables
- Weight and variance estimation variables
- Utilization, expenditure, and source of payment variables
- Unique person identifiers and survey administration variables
Limitations
Related publications / Literature
- Accuracy of Medicare expenditures in the medical expenditure panel survey
- The Medical Expenditure Panel Survey: a national health information resource
- Reliability and validity of the SF-12v2 in the medical expenditure panel survey
- Validity of reported Medicare Part D enrollment in the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey
- Validating household reports of health care use in the medical expenditure panel survey
- Implications of the accuracy of MEPS prescription drug data for health services research
- Health Care Use and Costs for Children With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: National Estimates From the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey
- Poverty and severe psychiatric disorder in the U.S.: evidence from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey
- Potentially inappropriate medication use in the community-dwelling elderly: findings from the 1996 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey
- Medical Expenditure Panel (MEPS)
Data access
Only MEPS' Household Component (MEPS-HC) is available for public use. You can find other supplemental programming examples using MEPS data files at its repository on [AHRQ's GitHub page] (https://github.com/HHS-AHRQ/MEPS). For the other components,
- MEPS-NHC data files are only available through the [AHRQ Data Center or at one of the Federal Statistical Research Data Centers] (https://www.meps.ahrq.gov/mepsweb/data_stats/onsite_datacenter.jsp)
- MEPS-IC data files are available online (in tabular form only) and at the Federal Statistical Research Data Centers (for researchers with approved projects).
- MEPS-MPC data files are only available at [AHRQ Data Center] (https://www.meps.ahrq.gov/mepsweb/data_stats/onsite_datacenter.jsp)
For more information on the cost and use of health care and health insurance coverage in the United States, visit [MEPS website] (https://meps.ahrq.gov/mepsweb/).