An analysis of alternative imputation strategies for individuals with partial data in the National Medical Care Expenditure Survey.
Data collection in the National Medical Care Expenditure Survey was applied to the same panel of sample households in six rounds of interviewing, with 1977 as the reference period. Approximately 11 percent of all survey participants provided data for only part of the time they were eligible to respond. To allow for national estimates of relevant health parameters, the data for the partial participants must be adjusted for the entire time frame for which they were eligible. Consequently, three alternative imputation strategies were considered for implementation: a weighted adjustment to the partial data, a substitution of data from complete participants who matched the partial respondents on relevant demographic characteristics, and use of only the data from participants with complete information to characterize the nation. To determine the optimal strategy, a controlled experiment was conducted by artificially creating partial data for participants with complete information, then adjusting the synthetically produced partial data by the three imputation strategies.
D000704:Analysis of Variance; D003625:Data Collection; D011307:Drug Prescriptions / Q000191:economics*; D005102:Health Expenditures; D009309:National Center for Health Statistics, U.S.; D014481:United States