Small Area Estimation of Health Insurance Coverage From the Current Population Survey's Annual Social and Economic Supplement and the Survey of Income and Program Participation

摘要

The U.S. Census Bureau's Small Area Health Insurance Estimates (SAHIE) project of the Small Area Estimates Branch (SAEB) is developing model-based estimates of the number of people not covered by health insurance (i.e. who are uninsured) for states and counties. There is broad public interest in health insurance coverage issues. Generally, health insurance coverage statistics are available only through national household surveys, and the estimates from these surveys vary widely for a number of well-documented reasons (Lewis et al., 1998). The Current Population Survey's (CPS) Annual Social and Economic Supplement (ASEC) and the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) are two commonly cited sources for health insurance statistics. Sample sizes are not large enough, however, that the surveys alone can produce sufficiently reliable state or sub-state estimates for many policy purposes. Recent methodological developments, at both the U.S. Census Bureau and in the broader research community, offer new potential for developing estimates of various uninsured populations in small areas. The SAEB has played a significant role in this field, developing a program that produces income and poverty estimates at the state, county, and school district levels. The Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates (SAIPE) program constructs statistical models that relate income and poverty to various indicators based on administrative records, population estimates, survey, and decennial census data. These are then combined with direct estimates from the ASEC to provide estimates and standard errors for the geographic areas of interest.