An application of statistical matching with the survey of income and education and the 1976 Health Interview Survey.

This article outlines an alternative procedure to household surveys for obtaining individual observation-level data. The procedure, called statistical matching, integrates data on an individual observation from one source with data on a different observation identified as the "best matching" or "most similar" record from a second source. The best match is determined by objective statistical criteria. Also reported is a significant application of the procedure between the Survey of Income and Education and the 1976 National Health Interview Survey. The success of merging these two large, nationally representative data files shows statistical matching as a viable method of creating databases for health services research.