Prior to 2012, in universe persons were asked about a series of specific health problems, symptoms, or conditions they may have treated with each of 16 CAM therapies. Beginning in 2012, persons were instead asked which three of the sixteen therapies were most important and only asked the series of questions related to treating health problems, symptoms, or conditions about these top three therapies. IPUMS NHIS staff used special programming to construct variables that are comparable with the versions of these variables available in pre-2012 samples, and are also offering the interim variables used for this programming as integrated variables. Data users could recreate the IHIS-constructed variables by looping through each of the condition-therapy combinations made available through these variables.

For example, if a person reports acupuncture as her/his first of top three CAM therapies (CAMTHER1 = 3) and reports using the top therapy for treating abdominal pain (TABDOM1 = 2), then this person will also have a "yes" value for the variable ACUTABDOM (used acupuncture to treat abdominal pain). Other combinations of these interim variables that would lead to a "yes" value for ACUTABDOM are if the person reported acupuncture as the second of her/his top three CAM therapies and had an affirmative answer for treating abdominal pain with her/his second therapy (TABDOM2 = 2), OR if the person reported acupuncture as her/his third top CAM therapy and using her/his third therapy for treating abdominal pain.

Users should note that all NHIS variables from the CAM supplement in 2012 are offered as integrated IHIS variables, however, variables that were added in 2012 are not combined with specified therapies. For example, because previous samples did not ask about treating chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) with specific therapies, but this was included in 2012, only the variables TCOPD1, TCOPD2, and TCOPD3 are available, but no version of ACUTCOPD was generated for this newly added condition. Researchers may, however, combine these variables with the corresponding CAMTHER1, CAMTHER2, or CAMTHER3 to create a variable comparable to the non-existent ACUTCOPD.

For a list of these combined variables please use the search function or the IHIS drop-down menus.