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Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS)
STIPULATIONS FOR USE: This data is only available for use by PENN STATE researchers.
DESCRIPTION: The Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) is a vital
resource designed to continually provide policymakers, health care administrators,
businesses, and others with timely, comprehensive information about health care
use and costs in the United States, and to improve the accuracy of their economic
projections.
MEPS collects data on the specific health services that Americans use, how frequently
they use them, the cost of these services, and how they are paid for, as well
as data on the cost, scope, and breadth of private health insurance held by
and available to the U.S. population. MEPS is unparalleled for the degree of
detail in its data, as well as its ability to link data on health services spending
and health insurance to the demographic, employment, economic, health status,
and other characteristics of survey respondents. Moreover, MEPS is the only
national survey that provides a foundation for estimating the impact of changes
in sources of payment and insurance coverage on different economic groups or
special populations of interest, such as the poor, elderly, families, veterans,
the uninsured, and racial and ethnic minorities. The Agency for Healthcare Research
and Quality (AHRQ), formerly called the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research,
began fielding MEPS in March 1996. AHRQ conducts MEPS in conjunction with the
National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) and through contracts with Westat,
a survey research firm headquartered in Washington, DC, and the National Opinion
Research Center, which is affiliated with the University of Chicago. MEPS is
the most recent in a series of medical expenditure surveys that began in 1977
as the National Medical Care Expenditure Survey and later became the National
Medical Expenditure Survey (NMES). The last study in this series was conducted
in 1987. This new survey provides critically needed updates to the 1987 data.
Taken directly from: MEPS Fact Sheet. February 2001. Agency for Healthcare
Research and Quality, Rockville, MD. http://www.meps.ahrq.gov/whatismeps/bulletin.htm
The MEPS actually comprises a family of surveys that cover four major components of the US health care system; (a) a household survey, (2) a survey of medical providers (doctors, hospitals, and home health agencies) linked to the household survey, (3) a survey of health insurance providers (employers, insurance companies, associations, and unions) as well as an indepentant survey of employers, and (4) a survey of nursing homes and nursing home residents.
ORIGINATING AGENCY: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
(AHRQ) - formerly known as the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (AHCPR).
RELATED WEB SITES(S):
MEPS Project Web Site
MEPS Data and Publications
Web Pages
AHRQ Web Site
PRI FACULTY, AFFILIATES, AND STUDENTS: Please note that restricted data
is also available, but must be used at the Data Center in AHRQ, Rockville, MD.
If you are interested, click HERE
for more information.
DATA DISSEMINATED BY: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)