Medical Expenditure Panel Survey Public Use File Details

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MEPS HC-178A: 2015 Prescribed Medicines File

Release date: July 2017

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This file is one in a series of public use event files from the 2015 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey Household Component (MEPS HC) and Medical Provider Component (MPC). Released as an ASCII data file and SAS transport file (with SAS, STATA, and SPSS user statements) this public use file provides detailed information on household-reported prescribed medicines for a nationally representative sample of the civilian noninstitutionalized population of the United States and can be used to make estimates of prescribed medicine utilization and expenditures for calendar year 2015. Each record represents one household-reported prescribed medicine that was purchased during calendar year 2015. These data were collected during the 2015 portion of Round 3 and Rounds 4 and 5 for Panel 19, as well as Rounds 1, 2 and the 2015 portion of Round 3 for Panel 20 of the MEPS HC. Each record on this event file represents a unique prescribed medicine event; that is, a prescribed medicine reported as being purchased or otherwise obtained by the household respondent, and includes the following: an identifier for each unique prescribed medicine; detailed characteristics associated with the event (e.g., national drug code (NDC), medicine name, etc.); selected Multum Lexicon variables; conditions, if any, associated with the medicine; the date on which the person first used the medicine; total expenditure and sources of payments; types of pharmacies that filled the household's prescriptions; and a full-year person level weight.

Documentation

File type

Documentation	PDF (453 KB) / HTML
Codebook	PDF (146 KB) / HTML*
SAS Programming Statements	TXT (59 KB)
SPSS Programming Statements	TXT (338 KB)
STATA Programming Statements	TXT (343 KB)

Data	File type**

Data File, ASCII format

ZIP (8.7 MB) / EXE (4.5 MB)

Data File, SAS transport format

ZIP (9.8 MB) / EXE (4.7 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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