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Creating a variable for disease [message #15034] Sat, 26 May 2018 12:08 Go to next message
anikhpg42@gmail.com is currently offline  anikhpg42@gmail.com
Messages: 38
Registered: December 2017
Location: Bangladesh
Member

Hi,

I am working with the malnutrition status of children under age 5.
Recently I have generated an idea but don't know, is it possible to work out with BDHS data.

You know that, regarding child disease, there are some variables such as, had diarrhea/fever/ARI recently? (Yes, No..)

Now, I wanted to combine these 3 variables into one named "Had diseases recently"= "Yes, No" [combination of diarrhea,fever and ARI by recoding]
(just like the variables of ''media exposure'', 'complementary foods' etc)

What I want to know that, will it be granted to all and everywhere (journals/experts) if I combine these three into one variable?

By combining them into one variable, I want to investigate it as one of the possible determinants
(among with other socio-demographic determinants) of child malnutrition in my logistic regression.

If I can not do it such this way, is there any possible way I can combine them in one variable?

Best regards,
Anik


ASIBUL ISLAM ANIK
Re: Creating a variable for disease [message #15073 is a reply to message #15034] Wed, 30 May 2018 07:54 Go to previous message
Bridgette-DHS is currently offline  Bridgette-DHS
Messages: 3013
Registered: February 2013
Senior Member

Following is a response from Senior DHS Stata Specialist, Tom Pullum:

Yes, you definitely can construct such a variable. It would be 1 if any of the three relevant variables is "yes" and 0 otherwise, except that it would be NA (dot) if all of the three variables are NA. But it would seem much more appropriate to me to think of illness as a consequence, rather than as a determinant, of malnutrition.
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