Medical Expenditure Panel Survey: a valuable database for studying racial and ethnic disparities in prescription drug use.
BACKGROUND
Despite the importance of equal access to prescription drugs by racial and ethnic groups, studies on access to prescription drugs have been incomprehensive.


OBJECTIVE
To describe the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) as a valuable data source to study racial and ethnic disparities in prescription drug use.


METHODS
Use of the MEPS database to study disparities in prescription drug use is detailed. This includes strengths and limitations of the database, as well as key methodological, sampling, and statistical issues to consider when using it.


RESULTS
Using MEPS allows researchers to control for sociodemographic and health status information when studying racial and ethnic disparities in prescription drug use. MEPS has taken measures to improve reliability of the information on the utilization of prescription drugs. An additional benefit of MEPS is that it has oversampled Hispanics, Blacks, and Asians; as such, it affords the statistical power to examine these minority groups. One limitation of MEPS is the inability of researchers to study some drug categories, because of limitations in statistical power. Moreover, the names of the prescription medications are not standardized in MEPS, and some information is not publicly available in MEPS databases. When conducting studies requiring information not publicly available, researchers may commute to the MEPS Data Center or may request the Data Center to run statistical programs for them.


CONCLUSIONS
Using MEPS to study racial and ethnic disparities in prescription drug use has significant benefits. Nonetheless, researchers need to keep in mind the limitations of using MEPS.
Wang
Junling
J
Division of Health Outcomes & Policy Research, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Tennessee College of Pharmacy, 847 Monroe Avenue, Room 205R, Memphis, TN 38163, USA. jwang26@utmem.edu
Mullins
C Daniel
CD
Zuckerman
Ilene H
IH
Walker
Genene D
GD
Suda
Katie J
KJ
Yang
Yi
Y
White-Means
Shelley I
SI
D016208:Databases, Factual; D004363:Drug Utilization; D005006:Ethnicity / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D019538:Health Care Surveys / Q000379:methods; D054625:Healthcare Disparities / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D055553:Prescription Drugs / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D044469:Racial Groups / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D014481:United States
D055553:Prescription Drugs