In 2012, SHADAC created and released the SHADAC “Health Insurance Unit,” or “HIU,” to aid researchers in reconciling the differences between the way that a “family” is defined in federal surveys (such as the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey [ACS] or Current Population Survey [CPS]) with the way a “family” is defined by most private and public insurance programs, specifically for the purposes of analyzing health insurance coverage. The SHADAC HIU has been updated over time and has now been updated again in response to changes to policy and program eligibility rules.

To support the use of the SHADAC HIU we have developed three products:

2020 Update of SHADAC’s Health Insurance Unit (July 2020): An issue brief that describes the SHADAC HIU, its purpose, the most recent update, and improvements to HIU data inputs made available by IPUMS.

*RECENTLY UPDATED* Defining Family for Studies of Health Insurance Coverage (July 2023): A brief that outlines the impacts of using the SHADAC HIU in analysis—specifically, analysis showing how the population distribution of family income changes using three different definitions of family: all members in the same household (Census definition), the definition used by the IPUMS (described below), and the SHADAC HIU (described in detail in a companion brief). Researchers can use this brief to assess whether the SHADAC HIU is suitable for their analysis and what the potential impacts of its use might be.

Stata Code (January 2021): Technical documentation of statistical code in STATA and SAS to help researchers to employ the SHADAC HIU in their own analysis using ACS microdata downloaded from IPUMS USA.

Archived documentation from previous versions of the SHADAC HIU include:
"Defining Family for Studies of Health Insurance Coverage" August 2021
"Using SHADAC Health Insurance Unit (HIU) and Federal Poverty Guideline (FPG) Microdata Variables" November 2013
"Defining “Family” for Studies of Health Insurance Coverage" March 2012 

For questions about the SHADAC HIU or to receive technical assistance regarding its use, please feel free to contact SHADAC analysts at shadac@umn.edu