Data

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Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project Databases

August 15, 2011 in Data | 1 comment

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s (AHRQ)  Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) is a family of databases and tools intended to improve the quality, safety, efficiency, and effectiveness of the U.S.   health care system.  HCUP results from Federal-State-Industry partnership to build a comprehensive all payer data system.  A summary of the databases available from HCUP can be found here.  A summary is also provided in the table below.

Abbreviation

 File Description States Participating

Available From:
SID State Inpatient Databases Data on 95 percent of community hospital discharges 44 1990
SASD State Ambulatory Surgery Databases Ambulatory surgical center data (hospital and free-standing) 29 1997
SEDD State Emergency Department Databases ED visits that do not result in hospitalization 29 1999
NIS Nationwide Inpatient Sample All-payer inpatient care database. A 20% stratified sample of U.S. community hospitals. varies by year 1988
NEDS National Emergency Department Sample All-payer inpatient ED database. A 20% stratified sample of U.S. community hospitals. 2006
KID Kids’ Inpatient Database All-payer inpatient database for children.  Contains 3 million discharges form 3,500 community hospitals. 1997

 

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What happened to the Census?

October 6, 2010 in Data | 1 comment

The year 2010 marks the last for the decennial Census.  Although you might miss the ad campaigns every 10 years, the Census hasn’t really disappeared completely.  Instead, it’s being replaced by the American Community Survey (ACS).  Although the goals of the ACS are similar to those of the Census, its approach is very different.  Rather than survey all individuals each year, the ACS surveys about 250,000 addresses per month (i.e., 3 million addresses/year).  This amounts to a survey of about 2.5% of households each year.

The Missouri Census Data Center notes some of the pros and cons of the change.

Pros

  • The ACS provides a more current picture of the country.  Currently, the latest Census data is available for the year 2000 while in December the ACS will release figures for 2009.
  • New questions can be added to the survey without having to wait for the decade to change
  • Researchers can calculate statistics at the national, state, MSA, large city,  counties, and even PUMAs every year.

Cons

  • The sampling error associated with the decennial census long form data is much lower (in general) than that of the ACS.
  • Data for smaller geographic areas (especially those under 20,000 as well as for all ZIP codes, even those with populations over 20,000), are only released as 5-year period estimates.
  • Sampling methodology relies on the accuracy of Census population estimates.
  • Since using data for small area requires the use of a sample taken over a 5-year period, it will be impossible to use the ACS data to pinpoint areas that may be undergoing significant changes over the period.

Overall, the key benefit of the ACS is that it provides more timely responses while the drawback is that the pool of household sampled in a given year is much less than is the case for the decennial Census.

I have also made this spreadsheet to compare the ACS to the decennial Census.

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CPS undercounts Medicaid Enrollees

June 5, 2009 in Data, Medicaid/Medicare | No comments

Survey estimates of Medicaid enrollment are 43 percent lower than raw Medicaid program enrollment counts.  Why is this the case?  Roebuck and Liberman (HSR 2009) find that many people are not reporting that they have Medicaid coverage.  “43 percent of Medicaid enrollees answering the CPS as though they were not enrolled and 17 percent reported being uninsured.”

One reason for the underreporting could be that the poor may only enroll after they get sick.  Further, if they do not pay for Medicaid, they may feel that they are just receiving government assistance rather than “insurance.”

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Unemployment and Population Data on Google

May 13, 2009 in Data | 1 comment

Google has created easy to use charts on U.S. population and employment from public-use data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  Instructions of how to use this data can be found here (video).  Here are some examples I created:

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Limitations of the “Science” of Economics

February 20, 2009 in Economics - General | No comments

From Nobel Prize winner Friedrich A. Hayek’s “Pretence of Knowledge” Speech.

“Unlike the position that exists in the physical sciences, in economics and other disciplines that deal with essentially complex phenomena, the aspects of the events to be accounted for about which we can get quantitative data are necessarily limited and may not include the important ones. While in the physical sciences it is generally assumed, probably with good reason, that any important factor which determines the observed events will itself be directly observable and measurable, in the study of such complex phenomena as the market, which depend on the actions of many individuals, all the circumstances which will determine the outcome of a process, for reasons which I shall explain later, will hardly ever be fully known or measurable. And while in the physical sciences the investigator will be able to measure what, on the basis of a prima facie theory, he thinks important, in the social sciences often that is treated as important which happens to be accessible to measurement.“

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Health Services Research Data

November 4, 2008 in Data | No comments

Are you looking for health services research data?  How can you leverage your knowledge for interdisciplinary research? AcademyHealth has a useful website called HSR Methods which will help you answer these questions.  Most importantly, there is a list datasets researchers can use.

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Medicare Part D data available

July 24, 2008 in Data, Pharmaceuticals | Permalink

For researchers interested in studying the Medicare prescription drug benefit, CMS has claims data for Medicare Part D.  Academy Health also has a useful powerpoint presentation giving some more information regarding Medicare Part D and what information is available as part of the CMS Medicare Part D claims data.

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