st: using two dataset simultaneously

["Visintainer, Paul" <PAUL_VISINTAINER@NYMC.EDU>]

I have a dataset of about 1000 children and adolescents all of whom have
BMIs.  I want to generate 3 new variables: underwt < 5th %ile; overwt >
85th %ile; obese > 95th %ile, based on their age and sex (I give a
synopsis of one of the command below). 

      gen underwt = 1 if sex==[0 or 1]  & agemo== [57.5 mos to 215 mos]
& bmi < [a specific value]


My problem is that the unique BMI cutpoints based on age and sex (the
"specific value" in the command above--more than 400 of them), are in
another dataset.  The format of the dataset with the BMI standards looks
like:

Sex   Agemo P5          P85 		P95
1	61.5	13.82664746	16.84600319	17.96602144
1	62.5	13.81537489	16.85300198	17.99561523
1	63.5	13.8047237	16.86173124	18.02763543
1	64.5	13.79469004	16.87216519	18.06201396
1	65.5	13.78526882	16.88428085	18.09868317
1	66.5	13.77645627	16.89805459	18.13757754
. . . 

I don't want to have to type in each unique BMI standard.  Is there a
way to get Stata to take an observation from one dataset to and evaluate
it against criteria that exists in another?

Thanks for any help.

-p
______________________________________
Paul F. Visintainer, PhD



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