Description

CANLUNGYRC indicates whether the person had lung cancer in the past year. This variable is created with supplemental programming by the IPUMS NHIS staff from the pre-1997 condition records. For general information about IHIS variables (such as CANLUNGYRC) created from the pre-1997 condition records, see the User Note on Condition Records and Condition Variables.

Defining Lung Cancer Records and Identifying Persons with Lung Cancer

For all available years, persons who were asked a direct question about having lung cancer and who have a chronic lung cancer condition record are given a "Yes" code for CANLUNGYRC. Persons who were asked a direct question about having lung cancer but do not have a chronic lung cancer record are given a code of "No." Persons who were not asked a direct question about lung cancer, or for whom it is unknown whether they were asked such a question, are given a code of "NIU" (not in universe), regardless of whether they have a chronic lung cancer record.

For all available years (1984 to 1996), chronic lung cancer records were defined as those condition records with a code of "613" ("Malignant neoplasms of lung and bronchus") in the variable C1CONDRC in the original NHIS public use files. This condition code value comes from NCHS's Diagnostic Recode C: Chronic Conditions and Impairments.

Weights
For all available years (1984-1996), CANLUNGYRC should be weighted with CONDWT6.

Related Lung Cancer Variables
The nearest equivalent of CANLUNGYRC for 1997 forward is CNLUNG (Ever had cancer: Lung). However, researchers should use caution when comparing prevalence estimates derived from these two variables, as the reference period and manner of collecting information about lung cancer differs greatly between the two. CANLUNGYRC was created by recoding condition records that were generated in response to several different survey questions about health problems underlying disability, sick days, or contacts with health care practitioners in the past year. CNLUNG, by contrast, is based on a direct question about whether the person ever had the condition lung cancer.

Comparability

There are no comparability issues with CANLUNGYRC.

Universe

Availability

• 1984-1996

Weights

• 1984-1996 : CONDWT6