RE: st: Changing spells to person-years

[David Kantor <kantor.d@att.net>]

When you say "row", is this a line of raw data, or an observation in 
a Stata dataset?  (Have you already loaded it into Stata?  If so, 
what are the variables and types?)

Where you write, "Next Variable (same row)", it is not clear how you 
determine where one "variable" ends and another begins.  And it is 
not clear what you mean by "missing from 4th start date to 10th end 
date" and "missing from 8th start date through 10th end 
date".  (Which attributes?)

If this is raw data, please show enough of a sample so we can see two 
or more attributes of one person.  Let us know where the line-breaks 
are, since our mail programs may insert additional line-breaks. 
Include a person-identifier (which I presume exists). You can use 
substitute values for person-identifier if necessary, to conceal identities.

And please do not include attachments.

--David


At 10:20 PM 11/20/2006, you wrote:

> David and listservers,
>
>
>
> Thank you for your help. Here are better specifics of the data:
>
>
>
> rural  0  3  urban 4 6  rural 7 15 urban  16  20 rural 21 24 urban 
> 25 26 rural 27 27
>
> This represents one person and their history of living in rural or 
> urban areas (first number is start age, second number is end age). 
> Below I outline how this person looks and variables before what I list above:
>
> Person 1, Lives in Central from age 0-10, lives in Greater Accra 
> from 11-20, lives in Ashanti from 21-27, missing from 4th start date 
> to 10th end date (this person has lived in three regions her whole 
> life). "Next Variable (same row)", lives in rural area from 0-3, 
> urban area from 4-6, rural area from 7-15, urban area from 16-20, 
> rural area from 21-24, urban area from 25-26, rural area from 27 to 
> 27 (person is 27 years old), missing from 8th start date through 
> 10th end date.
>
> I hope this makes things clearer. How can this spell file be changed 
> into a person-year long file without creating hundreds of new 
> variables to represent a spell?
>
> -Justin



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