Medical Expenditure Panel Survey Public Use File Details

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MEPS HC-228: 2021 Full Year Population Characteristics File
(HC-228 replaced by HC-233)

Release date: March 2023

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Released as an ASCII file (with related R, SAS, SPSS, and Stata programming statements and data user information) and a SAS dataset, SAS transport dataset, Stata dataset, and Excel file, this public use file provides information collected on a nationally representative sample of the civilian noninstitutionalized population of the United States for calendar year 2021. The file contains data collected in Rounds 7, 8, and 9 of Panel 23; Rounds 5, 6, and 7 of Panel 24; Rounds 3, 4, and 5 of Panel 25; and Rounds 1, 2, and 3 of Panel 26 of the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (i.e., the rounds for the MEPS panels covering calendar year 2021). This year, 2021, is the first data year to include four panels of data; Panel 23 was extended to include Rounds 7, 8, and 9 and Panel 24 was extended to include Rounds 6, and 7. In addition, the Panel 24 Round 5 reference period was extended into 2021 instead of ending on 12/31/2020. This file contains variables pertaining to survey administration, demographics, person-level conditions, health status, disability days, quality of care, health care delays due to COVID-19, COVID-19 vaccinations, Social Determinants of Health (SDOH), employment, and health insurance. The 2021 full-year expenditure, medical care use counts and income data will be forthcoming. For more details on loading MEPS PUFs into R, SAS, and Stata, please visit the MEPS GitHub page

Documentation

File type

Documentation	PDF (1.3 MB) / HTML
Codebook	PDF (2.5 MB) / HTML*
SAS Programming Statements	TXT (348 KB)
SPSS Programming Statements	TXT (236 KB)
STATA Programming Statements	TXT (289 KB)
R Programming Statements	TXT (35 KB)

Data	File type**

Data File, ASCII format

ZIP (4.1 MB)

Data File, SAS transport format

ZIP (5.5 MB)

Data File, SAS V9 format

ZIP (7.5 MB)

Data File, Stata format

ZIP (3.6 MB)

Data File, XLSX format

ZIP (45 MB)

Questionnaires — see Survey Questionnaires
The PDF version of the codebook is recommended for printing; the HTML version is database driven and lets you navigate quickly to details on each variable. *Right-click on the data file link, then select Save Target As or Save Link As to download the file.

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