st: STATA and NHIS weight variables

[Michael Drazer <michaeldrazer@uchicago.edu>]

Hello,

I am new to STATA and am doing some work with a dataset that I created  
by merging together the 2005 sample adult, person, and sample adult  
cancer NHIS datasets. I'm trying to construct an appropriate survey  
design statement, but am not sure how to properly define the pweights  
for my dataset.

According to the Sample Adult variable layout, the wtfa_sa weight  
should be used for most sample adult analyses - I noticed, however,  
that the Sample Adult dataset also has values for the wtfa weight. All  
of the 98,649 observations in my merged dataset have wtfa weights, but  
only those 31,428 observations in the sample adult/sample adult cancer  
datasets contain wtfa_sa weights. My question is: to properly weigh  
this data, should I use a standard survey design statement, such as:

svyset [pweight=wtfa],strata(stratum)psu(psu)

even though it does not take into account the wtfa_sa weights, or is  
there a better way to weigh this data?

For additional info re: variable layouts in the NHIS data, see here  
(the Variable layout PDFs are informative in terms of a description of  
the wtfa and wtfa_sa variables - see the person layout for wtfa and  
either the sample adult or sample adult cancer layout for the wtfa_sa  
variable): http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nhis/nhis_2005_data_release.htm

Thanks in advance,

Michael


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