DOI: 10.3886/icpsr06221
title: National Medical Expenditure Survey, 1987: Survey of American Indians and Alaska Natives, Preliminary Ambulatory Medical Visit Data [Public Use Tape 23.5P]
title: Archival Version

description: The National Medical Expenditure Survey (NMES) series 
 provides information on health expenditures by or on behalf of families 
 and individuals, the financing of these expenditures, and each person's 
 use of services. The Survey of American Indians and Alaska Natives 
 (SAIAN) was designed in collaboration with the Indian Health Service 
 (IHS), and used the same data collection instruments, interview 
 procedures, and time frame as the NMES Household Survey component. 
 However, the SAIAN differed from the Household Survey in several 
 respects. The SAIAN sample was interviewed only three times and was not 
 given the supplements on long-term care, caregiving, and 
 care-receiving. Also, SAIAN respondents were asked additional questions 
 on topics such as use of IHS facilities and traditional medicine, and 
 were given a modified self-administered questionnaire with separate 
 versions for adults and children. Interviewers for the SAIAN were 
 mainly American Indians or Alaska Natives, and about 20 percent of the 
 interviews were not conducted entirely in English. Of these, 
 approximately 40 percent were conducted entirely in the native language 
 of the respondent. Public Use Tape 23.5 provides three data files 
 containing information on the use of and expenditures for ambulatory 
 medical services and sources of payment reported in the SAIAN Survey. 
 An ambulatory visit is defined as a single contact with a medical 
 provider for one or more services in either a hospital outpatient 
 department or emergency room, a setting other than an inpatient 
 hospital (such as a physician's office, a clinic, or a lab), a nursing 
 home, or a person's home. The first file includes visits and telephone 
 calls to physicians' offices (including HMOs and health departments) in 
 settings other than a hospital or at home, and to providers of care 
 (e.g., chiropractors and psychologists). The second file covers visits 
 to hospital outpatient departments, while the third file provides 
 information on visits to hospital emergency rooms, both regardless of 
 provider type. A record on any of these data files represents a unique 
 ambulatory visit. Variables include dates of visits, medical conditions 
 associated with the visit, types of procedures performed, and the main 
 reason for the visit. In addition, each file contains demographic 
information such as age, sex, and race.
description: The sample is a stratified area probability design with 
 three stages of sample selection: (1) selection of primary sampling 
 units (PSUs), which are counties or groups of contiguous counties (in 
 Alaska, the county equivalents developed by the state of Alaska and the 
 Census Bureau for statistical purposes were employed), (2) selection of 
 segments within PSUs, (3) selection and screening of dwelling units 
 within segments. Based on the results of the screening, all dwelling 
 units including persons eligible for IHS services were selected in the 
 SAIAN. The sample frame included all counties in the United States 
 including or adjacent to reservations of federally-recognized tribes or 
 Alaska Native villages. For cost considerations, the sample frame was 
 truncated to remove counties with the lowest concentrations of eligible 
 persons, and disproportionate sampling was applied to remaining 
counties with low concentrations of American Indians.
description: Datasets: 
DS0: Study-Level Files
DS1: Medical Provider Visits
DS2: Hospital Outpatient Visits
DS3: Hospital Emergency Room Visits
DS4: Technical and Programming Information and Data Dictionary
DS5: SAS Control Cards for All Parts
description: Civilian, noninstitutionalized American Indians and Alaska 
 Natives, living on or near federal reservations, who were eligible to 
 receive care provided or supported by the Indian Health Service, and 
who had at least one ambulatory medical visit, regardless of facility.
description: The principal investigator notes that the data in 
 Public Use Tape 23.5P are preliminary in nature and are being released 
 prior to final cleaning and editing, in order to provide access to 
 information from the SAIAN. Records in these files can be linked to 
 other public use datasets from the SAIAN using the person identifier 
 (PIDX). The file also contains, for each person, basic demographic 
 characteristics as established in the SAIAN. This collection is 
 superseded by NATIONAL MEDICAL EXPENDITURE SURVEY, 1987: SURVEY OF 
 AMERICAN INDIANS AND ALASKA NATIVES, POPULATION DATA, DATA FROM THE 
 HEALTH STATUS QUESTIONNAIRE AND ACCESS TO CARE SUPPLEMENT, AND 
 EXPENDITURES AND SOURCES OF PAYMENT DATA [PUBLIC USE TAPE 37] (ICPSR 
6490).