st: compiling observations across variables

[Kim Price <kprice@hsph.harvard.edu>]

Hi,

I have 5 variables that list chronic conditions and I need to tally the conditions across the variables.  First I tried generating a dummy variable and replacing it with each subset of chronic categories across the five variables and then by creating each separately and recoding them, however these approaches did not yield accurate results.  After looking in the reference manuals and on-line I tried both the sum and count commands, however they are also not presenting accurate totals either.  I've enclosed excerpts from my Do-files using both the dummy variables and "count" command.  

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Kim

Using a dummy variable:

#delimit ;
gen cc=.;

replace cc=1 if chron1cat==1;
replace cc=1 if chron2cat==1;
replace cc=1 if chron3cat==1;
replace cc=1 if chron4cat==1;
replace cc=1 if chron5cat==1;

replace cc=2 if chron1cat==2;
replace cc=2 if chron2cat==2;
replace cc=2 if chron3cat==2;
replace cc=2 if chron4cat==2;
replace cc=2 if chron5cat==2;

replace cc=3 if chron1cat==3;
replace cc=3 if chron2cat==3;
replace cc=3 if chron3cat==3;
replace cc=3 if chron4cat==3;
replace cc=3 if chron5cat==3;

and so forth....

Using a dummy variable and recoding:

#delimit ;
gen cc=.;

replace cc=1 if chron1cat==1;
replace cc=2 if chron2cat==1;
replace cc=3 if chron3cat==1;
replace cc=4 if chron4cat==1;
replace cc=5 if chron5cat==1;

replace cc=6 if chron1cat==2;
replace cc=7 if chron2cat==2;
replace cc=8 if chron3cat==2;
replace cc=9 if chron4cat==2;
replace cc=10 if chron5cat==2;

and so forth...

recode cc 
1/5=1 
6/10=2 

and so forth...

Using count (I followed a similar format using sum):

count if chron1cat==1 | chron2cat==1 | chron3cat==1 | chron4cat==1 | chron5cat==1;
/*1 "Nervous system" */
count if chron1cat==2 | chron2cat==2 | chron3cat==2 | chron4cat==2 | chron5cat==2;
/* 2 "Headache/migraine" */
count if chron1cat==3 | chron2cat==3 | chron3cat==3 | chron4cat==3 | chron5cat==3;
/* 3 "Problems with vision" */

and so forth...