March 9, 2010: In fall of 2009 we introduced "enhanced" estimates from the Current Population Survey (CPS), providing a harmonized view of health insurance coverage over time. These enhanced estimates are useful for policy analysis.
We developed these estimates because the data released by the Census Bureau do not account for some methodological changes that result in known consistency problems. Research conducted by SHADAC since 2000 has proven that these and other problems impact health insurance coverage estimates.
These adjusted variables are now available for public use. Microdata users can download the variables through IPUMS, the public use microdata resource at the Minnesota Population Center. A special thanks goes out to Jeanette Ziegenfuss, now at Mayo Clinic and formerly of SHADAC, and Matt Schroeder at the Minnesota Population Center for getting these variables posted.
We've developed some instructions to help users understand how the variables are constructed and what you need to ensure a complete extract. Refer to our technical brief, "Using SHADAC's Enhanced Current Population Survey Health Insurance Coverage Microdata," for this information.
In short, there are eight insurance coverage variables (referred to as "summary health insurance variables" on the IPUMS site) and one weighting variable. To produce the enhanced estimates, use the summary health insurance variables, plus any other variables you want, and weight the estimates using the enhanced weight.
The instructions are intended to help new and veteran users of the IPUMS site. We encourage microdata users to download some data and run estimates. For those who don't want to work with the microdata, you can still run estimates using either the regular and enhanced CPS at our Data Center.
For more information on the changes applied with this adjustment see SHADAC's technical brief, "SHADAC-Enhanced Current Population Survey Health Insurance Coverage Estimates: A Summary of Historical Adjustments."