Description

For all medication-round fills, PANELF reports the number of the panel of which the participant was a member on the medication-round fill record. MEPS began in 1996 with Panel number 1 and the panel number for persons entering the MEPS in each subsequent year increases by 1, so that 1997 had Panels 1 (the panel that entered in 1996, in their second year in 1997) and 2 (the panel newly entering MEPS in 1997), 1998 had Panels 2 and 3, 1999 had Panels 3 and 4, and so on. PANELF can be combined with DUIDF and PIDF to uniquely identify individuals across panels on the medication-round fill records. IPUMS MEPS offers the constructed variable MEPSIDF that is equal to the concatenated values of PANELF, DUIDF, and PIDF. Beginning in 2018, DUIDF begins with PANELF and so concatenating PANELF with DUIDF and PIDF is no longer necessary.

For more information on the relationship between calendar year, panel, and round data, please see the IPUMS MEPS Panel Design Documentation.

Comparability

There are no comparability issues.

Universe

Availability

• 1996-2021

Weights

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

Flags