FAQ

1. During a brief period there was some repeated interviewing of some respondents. How / where can I obtain the repeated interview data?
1. The repeated inteview data is not available.
2. I noticed a number of missing responses. Can you explain this?
1. Some measures were collected only for part of the 6-year period of ANHCS data collection. If you look at the background descriptions of the study, the periods of data collection for each measure are described. Or, if you use the variable that captures the month of data collection, and cross tabulate it with whatever variable you are interested in, you will see when it was collected.
3. Should I trust the state or the county fips more? Is there a way of knowing which one is correct?
1. It is unknown whether the state or fips code is more reliable. There may have been a coding error when the data were provided to us. We do not know how often miscoding might have happened.
4. What versions of the data are provided on the website?
1. SPSS & Stata. The SPSS data file also can be transferred to a SAS file using an appropriate transfer program (e.g. Stat Transfer).
5. Do you have Stata version of the data?
1. The Stata version of the data is provided.
6. Is there any reason why you included / excluded a question?
1. The ANHCS questionnaire reflected the contributions of many different scholars at various times in its history. It is not feasible to provide guidance as to why particular questions were included or not, or how they might be used. The data are made publicly available, and we encourage their use, but it is up to individual researchers to interpret their own findings.
7. Where can I find / download the original questionnaire?
1. There is no separate questionnaire since it was administered online, and the questions included evolved. The full codebook, which describes all of the questions, can be downloaded from the ANHCS website.
8. I encountered an article that utilized the ANHCS study, which included a survey module / tool / etc. I'm very interested in reviewing the survey module / tool / etc. that was utilized. How can I obtain access to it?
1. Please contact the corresponding author of the article directly to obtain access.
9. I am reviewing the data in SAS and am having trouble getting both the numeric value and meaning of the response options. Do you have a codebook that has those things for the responses?
1. The dataset is only available as an SPSS or Stata file. The codebook information is embedded in the system file, available if one uses the active file (for example requesting Frequencies in SPSS or tab in Stata for the variables of interest). The SPSS data file can be transferred to a SAS file using an appropriate transfer program (e.g. Stat Transfer) and presumably the values for each variable will also be retained.