Released as an ASCII file (with related SAS, SPSS, STATA, and R programming statements) a SAS transport file, a SAS V9 file, a XLSX file, and a Stata 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 2018. This file consists of MEPS survey data obtained in Rounds 3, 4, and 5 of Panel 22 and Rounds 1, 2, and 3 of Panel 23 (i.e., the rounds for the MEPS panels covering calendar year 2018) and consolidates all of the final 2018 person-level variables onto one file. This file contains the following variables previously released on HC-204: survey administration, language of interview variable, demographics, parent identifiers, health status, disability days variables, access to care, employment, quality of care, patient satisfaction, health insurance, and use variables. The HC-209 file also includes these variables: income variables and expenditure variables.
Starting in 2018, instead of the XPORT engine, the CPORT procedure is used to create MEPS Public Use Files (PUFS)
in transport format (excluding the 2018 Point-in-Time file, HC-036, and HC-036BRR). These CPORT data files
(.ssp) cannot be read directly into R or Stata at this time. The ASCII (.dat) data file format can be used
instead, along with the corresponding instructions found in the 'Programming Statements' files. In addition,
SAS users must use the CIMPORT procedure to restore the transport files (.ssp) into SAS data sets. For more
details on loading MEPS PUFs into R, SAS, and Stata, please visit the
MEPS GitHub page. Update notes
*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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