st: When to use stdize and stdweight with svy: tab and svy: mean?

[Arturo Rodriguez <arturo.rdgz.trejo@gmail.com>]

Hi everybody,

I am working with survey data which was collected through a one-stage
cluster sample with stratification. I am trying to tabulate two
variables -a dummy and a categorical variable identifying districts. I
noticed that I can do the tabulation either by using "svy: tab dummy
district" or by "svy: tab dummy district, sdize(strata_var)
stdweight(weight_var)". I ran both commands and see that the % in the
results change from one command to the other; however, I don't know
what is happening behind the scenes.

My sample was stratified (by health centers) and the primary sampling
unit were "villages". In defining my survey characteristics I used the
command:
svyset villages [pweight = pw] strata(health_center)
fpc(total_number_of_villages_per_hc)

What is the difference between the results I'm getting from each option?
(1) svy: tab dummy district
(2) svy: tab dummy district, stdize(health_centre) stdweight(pw)

Since I'm working with stratified cluster data, does that necessarily
mean that all my svy: tab and svy: mean commands need to specify the
stdize and stdweight options?

Thanks in advance for all the wisdom.

Arturo
*
*   For searches and help try:
*   http://www.stata.com/help.cgi?search
*   http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
*   http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/