st: identifying most recent occurrence (line) where value of variable==X in stata

["Alison El Ayadi" <aelayadi@hsph.harvard.edu>]

Hello - 

I am working with a vertical dataset that is essentially tracking blood loss across time for a group of ob patients.  One important variable for cleaning the data is change in drape (which indicates that the cumulative increase should stop).  Because the data is also tracking other variables, this information is not always recorded on the same line that the blood loss is being recorded on.  I would like to generate a variable that tells me the line number of the most recent drape change. but am having trouble figuring that out.  I have used commands in the past such as L. and have seen information online about how to id the first and last occurrences conditionally, but nowhere have I found it possible to condition the skip on the value of the prior variable.  This is necessary because I am not sure how many lines are in between the index line and the line where I would like to extract the data from, and this will vary by line.

In a nutshell, I would like each line to read:
id, line number, blood loss reported on that line, drape change reported on that line, last line number that drape change was reported (or missing if none prior).

Does anyone have any ideas? 

Thank you so much.
Alison


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