Description

For all persons, MEPSID is a variable that uniquely identifies respondents across MEPS panels. It is created by combining PANEL, DUID, and PID. IPUMS MEPS staff create MEPSID for the 1996-2017 samples to provide a single, universal linking key for MEPS persons. Beginning in 2018, AHRQ modified the identifiers DUID and DUPERSID (which combines DUID with PID) on the original MEPS data files to append information about PANEL to the first two columns. This update makes DUPERSID identical to MEPSID in the IPUMS MEPS extract system for 2018-forward.

In earlier versions of IPUMS MEPS, IPUMS MEPS staff created a slightly different version of MEPSID, equivalent to combining DUID, PID, and PANEL. This version has been renamed to MEPSID2 and is only available for 1996-2017.

Codes

This is a 10-character string variable.

Comparability

This variable is completely comparable over time.

Universe

Availability

• 1996-2021

Weights

• No weights are available for this variable. Please refer to MEPSID for more information.

Flags