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Parse NHIS Linked Mortality Files into data frames

Source: R/nhis_mortality.R
nhis_mortality_parse.Rd

Reads the fixed-width .dat files (downloading them first if needed) and returns a named list of data frames, one per survey year.

Usage

nhis_mortality_parse(years = NULL, refresh = FALSE, download = TRUE)

Arguments

years

Character or numeric vector of NHIS survey years. Defaults to all available. See nhis_lmf_years().

refresh

Logical. Re-parse even if a cached RDS exists? Default FALSE.

download

Logical. Auto-download missing .dat files? Default TRUE.

Value

A named list of data frames. Each data frame contains:

PUBLICID

NHIS public-use identifier (join key – character, not numeric; NHIS does not use NHANES's SEQN).

ELIGSTAT

Eligibility: 1=eligible; 2=under 18; 3=insufficient data.

MORTSTAT

Vital status: 0=assumed alive; 1=assumed deceased.

UCOD_LEADING

Underlying cause of death (ICD-10 recode).

DIABETES

Diabetes mentioned on death certificate (1=yes).

HYPERTEN

Hypertension mentioned on death certificate (1=yes).

DODQTR

Quarter of death (1-4).

DODYEAR

Year of death.

WGT_NEW

Person-level sample weight, adjusted for linkage ineligibility. Blank for 1986 (NCHS recommends WTFA from the NHIS public-use file that year instead).

SA_WGT_NEW

Sample Adult sample weight, adjusted for linkage ineligibility. Only populated 1997 onward (the Sample Adult File did not exist before the 1997 NHIS redesign).

Details

Variable labels are attached as the "label" attribute on each column, following the haven/labelled convention – same as nhanes_mortality_parse().

Note

Unlike the NHANES LMF, NHIS's public-use LMF has no PERMTH_INT/PERMTH_EXM-equivalent person-months variable. Constructing follow-up time requires combining DODQTR/DODYEAR with the participant's own NHIS interview year/quarter, which comes from the NHIS survey data itself, not this file. There is no nhis_survival_prep() analogous to nhanes_survival_prep() for this reason – see nhis_mortality_link()'s documentation for how far this package takes NHIS mortality linkage.

See also

nhis_mortality_download() to download the raw .dat files; nhis_mortality_link() to join parsed mortality data onto NHIS data.

Examples

# \donttest{
lmf <- nhis_mortality_parse(c("2015", "2016"))
lmf[["2015"]]
#> # A tibble: 45,963 × 11
#>    PUBLICID      ELIGSTAT MORTSTAT UCOD_LEADING DIABETES HYPERTEN DODQTR DODYEAR
#>    <chr>            <int>    <int> <chr>           <int>    <int>  <int>   <int>
#>  1 201500000401…        1        0 NA                 NA       NA     NA      NA
#>  2 201500000501…        2       NA NA                 NA       NA     NA      NA
#>  3 201500001101…        1        0 NA                 NA       NA     NA      NA
#>  4 201500001601…        1        0 NA                 NA       NA     NA      NA
#>  5 201500001901…        1        0 NA                 NA       NA     NA      NA
#>  6 201500002101…        1        0 NA                 NA       NA     NA      NA
#>  7 201500002301…        1        0 NA                 NA       NA     NA      NA
#>  8 201500002401…        1        0 NA                 NA       NA     NA      NA
#>  9 201500002801…        1        0 NA                 NA       NA     NA      NA
#> 10 201500002801…        2       NA NA                 NA       NA     NA      NA
#> # ℹ 45,953 more rows
#> # ℹ 3 more variables: WGT_NEW <dbl>, SA_WGT_NEW <dbl>, .nhis_lmf_year <chr>
# }