The Utility of the Integrated Design of the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey to Inform Mortality-Related Studies

• Activity Number: 397
• Type: Topic Contributed
• Date/Time: Tuesday, July 31, 2012 : 2:00 PM to 3:50 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Survey Research Methods
• Author(s): Steven Cohen*+
• Companies: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
• Keywords: MEPS ; longitudinal ; data linkage ; National Death Index ; integrated designs

Abstract

The analytic capacity of surveys can be dramatically enhanced through the linkage to existing secondary data sources at higher levels of aggregation as well as through direct matches to additional health and socio-economic measures acquired for the same set of sample units from other sources of survey specific or administrative data. In this presentation, the capacity of an integrated survey design to enhance longitudinal analyses focused on mortality studies is discussed. Examples are drawn from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS), designed to produce estimates of health care utilization, expenditures, sources of payment, and insurance coverage of the US population. Analyses are conducted to examine differentials in pre-dispositional factors that distinguish a cohort of decedents from their surviving counterparts and to assess the relationship between antecedent health and healt