Description: MEPS collects information about a select group of medical conditions that have been specified by the Agency for HealthCare Research and Quality as "priority conditions." These conditions, selected for their prevalence, expense, or relevance to policy, are: hypertension, heart disease, stroke, emphysema, chronic bronchitis, high cholesterol, cancer, diabetes, arthritis, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD or ADD), and asthma.
Asthma information is collected by asking respondents whether they have ever been diagnosed with asthma. Those who said Yes were asked a series of follow-up questions regarding episodes of asthma and asthma medication. Asthma is also identified by the condition code associated with medical events reported during a reference period. In addition to the tables below, person-level data files with asthma variables can be downloaded for analysis.

Data tables: The Expenditures by Medical Conditions Tables of the MEPS-HC Summary Data Tables contain a series of tables with data by condition. You can find asthma in the list of conditions.

Analytic tools: No condition or asthma variables are available with the MEPSnet query tools at this time.