NHIS Data Documentation¶
Welcome! This site is an unofficial guide to the research databases of the Korean National Health Insurance Service (NHIS, 국민건강보험공단).
Motivation¶
The NHIS releases these databases through its data sharing service, but the documentation that comes with them is patchy, not version-controlled, and often limited to short variable lists. Many variables are self-explanatory, while others mean something different from what their names suggest, and researchers usually learn these differences by trial and error.
The goal of this website is to collect all the public information and knowledge on the NHIS databases, combined with hands-on experience working with the data, in one place, including variable definitions, guidance on constructing analysis samples, and known caveats.
It is modeled on the documentation that the Research Data Assistance Center (ResDAC) provides for Medicare data and on Kyle Barron's Medicare documentation.
What is on this site¶
The site has five parts.
- Program and data describes the health insurance system that generates the data, the family of NHIS research databases, and the application process.
- Datasets has one page per database, covering sample design, versions, and linkage.
- Variables documents each table and variable, with Korean and English labels, value codes, and notes.
- Working with the data is a series of short posts on practical issues, such as merging the tables, building an analysis sample, and the caveats that commonly lead to mistakes.
- Glossary translates the Korean administrative terms used in the data and the official documentation.
Disclaimer¶
This site is not affiliated with or endorsed by the NHIS. Entries are written by researchers who use the data and may contain errors, so check them against the documentation that comes with your extract before relying on them.
Contributing¶
Corrections, additions, and blog posts are welcome from anyone who has worked with the data, and the easiest way to send them is an email to sihopark@kdischool.ac.kr. The contributing page explains what to include and how the codebook files are organized.
Maintained by Siho Park, KDI School of Public Policy and Management.