st: Macro and Loop

[Ying Huang <hying@mail.med.upenn.edu>]

Dear all,

I am stuck in a Stata programming problem in work, and I wonder if you 
can help me out. I am working on a survey data right now and the data is 
in person level. And we want to see if a sample person had some kind of 
insurance coverage during a one-year period starting from the survey.

The first variable is the month of survey. It's numeric and goes from 1 
to 12.   And then I have 24 indicator variables (1/0) to indicate 
insurance coverage in 24 monthes. For example, if the survey is in 1997, 
then the survey month refer to Jan to Dec of 1997, and those 24 
variables show insurance coverage for each month in 97 and 98.

The variable I want to create is again a 1/0 variable, say call it 
"insurance". Starting from the survey month, if any of the following 12 
insurance coverage indicators = yes, then insurance =1; otherwise 
insurance =0.

I guess this would involve a macro and a forvalues loop. I tried to 
generate local macro a = interview month and b = interview month +12; 
then I tried to put "a" and "b" in a forvalues loop. But it did not work.

Thanks a lot for your help!!

Ying
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