Design and Methods of the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey Household Component.Methodology Report 1

摘要

The Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) is the third in a series ofnationally representative surveys of medical care use and expenditures sponsored by the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (AHCPR). The first of these surveys, the National Medical Care Expenditure Survey (NMCES), was conducted in 1977, and the second, the National Medical Expenditure Survey (NMES), in 1987. MEPS is cosponsorsed by the National Center for Health Statistics. MEPS comprises four component surveys, with the Household Component (HC) being the core survey. It collects detailed data on demographic characteristics, health insurance coverage, income, and employment. This report describes the design and methods of the 1996 MEPS HC, including comparability with other medical expenditure surveys, relationship to the National Health Interview Surveys, preliminary contact and rounds of data collection, and survey instruments. The types of statistics produced by the MEPS HC and uses of the data are described. In addition to producing annual estimates for a variety of health care measures, the data can be used for analysis to inform researchers and policymakers about how the characteristics of individuals and families, including their health insurance, affect medical care use and spending. In conjunction with data from earlier expenditure surveys, these data can be used to study trends in the nature and distribution of national health expenditures, sources of care, and amounts and types of services used by the U.S. noninstitutionalized population.