Description

For adults aged 18 and older, ADPALS indicates how much of the time in the last four weeks the respondent accomplished less than they would like as a result of their physical health. Beginning in 2017, MEPS reversed the order of the response categories in the original variable. IPUMS MEPS staff recoded this variable so that response categories are consistent across all years. This may require users to recode certain years of data to calculate the physical component summary (PCS) and mental component summary (MCS) scores.

ADPALS is one of a set of variables comprising the Veteran's RAND 12-item scale measuring self-rated health, collected on the Adult Self-Administered Questionnaire (SAQ). For related variables and more information, please see ADDAYA.

Comparability

From 2003 to 2016, respondents answered the question for ADPALS using a scale from 1 to 5 in which 1 stood for "All of the time" and 5 stood for "None of the time." Beginning in 2017, this response scale was reversed such that 1 represents "None of the time" and 5 represents "All of the time." This variable has been recoded to a scale from 0 to 4, where 0 stands for "None of the time" and 4 stands for "All of the time" from 2003 through the present year of data.

Universe

Availability

• 2003-2021

Weights

• 2003-2021 : SAQWEIGHT

Flags