Center for Drug Safety and Effectiveness
So you want to use MarketScan …
1. Attestation of agreement with the Data Use Agreement
Please read the Data Use Agreement that Johns Hopkins has signed with Truven Analytics. If you are
agreeable to all statements, please sign here.
______________________________
Signature
_____________
date
Version 1.0
This License is due to the generous support of the following Johns Hopkins entities:
JHSPH Department of Biostatistics
JHSPH Department of Health, Policy and Management
Center for Drug Safety and Effectiveness (CDSE)
Center for Health Services and Outcomes Research (CHSOR)
Center for Population Health Information Technology (CPHIT)
Center for Surgical Trials and Outcomes Research (CSTOR)
Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery
Institute for Clinical and Translational Research (ICTR)
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Center for Drug Safety and Effectiveness
2. Information about MarketScan data
We encourage you to read Health Research Data for the Real world: The MarketScan Data
Databases. This describes the sources of Truven’s data and how they are packaged into datasets
accessible to researchers.
We have access to the A. MarketScan Commercial Claims and Encounters Database 2010-2012 (see
page 7 of the white paper) and B. the Market Scan Lab Database (see page 11 of the white paper).
Note: we do not have inpatient drug use data, nor do we have the health risk assessment data.
A. MarketScan Commercial Claims and Encounters Database
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Center for Drug Safety and Effectiveness
B. Market Scan Lab Database
3. Data Request
In order to track usage and to provide assistance, we request a brief application so that we can get you
the data you need. The process is as follows:
a. Submit attestation of data use agreement to cdse@jhsph.edu
b. Submit IRB application – this will be considered exempt as there are no unique identifiers in this data and the
individuals cannot be identified.
c. Forward IRB notification to cdse@jhsph.edu
d. An analytic data set will be prepared according to your specifications and will be placed on the high-capacity
computer in biostatistics. You will be given a password with which you can enter to retrieve your data file, which
will then need to be transferred for storage and use on your local server. We are not storing analytic files on
the high-capacity computer and analytic extracts that are left there may be deleted. We can also transfer the
file to a CD or to an external hard drive if you prefer. The files will be delivered in SAS.
e. Any publications that come from using this data must acknowledge the source of data in the text and beneath
any tables or figures. The acknowledgement can be: This study used MarketScan Commercial Claims and
Encounters data as provided by Truven Health Analytics Inc.
f. Unless our license is renewed, at the end of our license period – April 10th 2016 – you will destroy all copies of
your data. Therefore, plan ahead for manuscript submissions as you will not be able to reanalyze data after this
date.
g. Please look at the MarketScan Users Guide and at the MarketScan Data Dictionary before proceeding with your
data request.
615 North Wolfe Street, W6035  Baltimore, Maryland 21205  www.jhsph.edu/dept/epi/  galexand@jhsph.edu
Center for Drug Safety and Effectiveness
NOTE: This data is free-for-use for unfunded or internally funded work only. If you are
submitting a grant for external funding, you will be asked to request funding from the granting
agency as specified in our Data Use Agreement (varies based on the funding source and the size of
the funding request).
615 North Wolfe Street, W6035  Baltimore, Maryland 21205  www.jhsph.edu/dept/epi/  galexand@jhsph.edu
Center for Drug Safety and Effectiveness
Please complete the following for your data request online:
Part A. Investigator
Requesting School/Department/Division:
PI:
Study Title:
Funding source (if any):
Funding period (if relevant):
Part B. Study
Background (one paragraph):
The background should succinctly highlight gaps in the current knowledge or practice in the field of study. The
researcher must show that he or she understands the important studies that form the foundation for the
protocol and indicate how the project will go beyond them.
Study Objectives/Research Questions (few sentences):
The objectives should pinpoint what the researcher plans to do and expects to achieve.
Study Design (few sentences):
Describe how the MarketScan data will be used to address the hypotheses.
We will deliver data in the MarketScan files to you for the members of your cohort. You need to tell us how to
define your cohort. For most studies, the cohort will be defined based on a set of ICD-9 or CPT codes, or
possible an age range, or exposure to a drug of interest. Our plan is to deliver to you ALL data on patients in
your cohort (inpatient, outpatient, etc) regardless of whether you think you will use this data in your analyses.
Cohorts should be carefully specified and we urge investigators to review published literature using claims data
for examples of cohort specifications.
Part C. Cohort Definition
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Center for Drug Safety and Effectiveness
Part C. Cohort Definition (Example)
Our cohort is defined as individuals over the age of 18 with diabetes mellitus on metformin.
For this study, this will be operationalized as:
A. One or more dispensings of metformin
AND
B. Hba1c greater than 6.5% twice
OR
Fasting glucose greater than 126mg/dl twice on different days
OR
Random glucose greater than 200 mg/dl twice on different days
OR
Any inpatient discharge diagnosis of ICD-9 250x, 357.2, 366.41, 362.01-362.07
OR
Outpatient visit diagnoses of ICD-9 250x, 357.2, 366.41, 362.01-362.07 twice on separate days
Part D. Instructions for Analyst
You will need to tell the analyst in which table he should look for these variables.
In the Data Dictionary you will see a list of
variables and the tables in which they found.
I: Inpatient Admissions
F: Facility Header
S: Inpatient Services
O: Outpatient Services
D: Outpatient Drug Claims
P: Populations
A: Annual Summary Enrollment
T: Detail Enrollment
Supplementary Table (drugs)
RED BOOK ®
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Center for Drug Safety and Effectiveness
Relevant Tables
Variable
Table
Using the example above:
Relevant Tables (Example)
Variable
Table
Metformin
D: Outpatient Drug Claims
RedBook Tables
ICD-9 codes
I, F, S,O
Age
On all tables
615 North Wolfe Street, W6035  Baltimore, Maryland 21205  www.jhsph.edu/dept/epi/  galexand@jhsph.edu