Description

For all persons, MEPSIDRD is a variable that uniquely identifies respondents across MEPS panels. It is created by combining PANELRD, DUIDRD, and PIDRD. 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 DUIDRD and DUPERSIDRD (which combines DUIDRD with PIDRD) on the original MEPS data files to append information about PANELRD to the first two columns. This update makes DUPERSIDRD identical to MEPSIDRD in the IPUMS MEPS extract system for 2018-forward.

In earlier versions of IPUMS MEPS, IPUMS MEPS staff created a slightly different version of MEPSIDRD, equivalent to combining DUIDRD, PIDRD, and PANELRD. This version has been renamed to MEPSID2RD 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 MEPSIDRD for more information.

Flags