Description

CONGHARTEVC indicates whether the person ever had chronic congenital heart disease. This variable is created with supplemental programming by the IPUMS NHIS staff from the pre-1997 condition records. For general information about IHIS variables created from the pre-1997 condition records, such as CONGHARTEVC, see the User Note on Condition Records and Condition Variables.

Defining Congenital Heart Disease Records and Identifying Persons with Congenital Heart Disease

For all available years, persons with this condition are identified through a direct question about having congenital heart disease. For 1972-1981, a person could also have a record for this condition through an indirect question, such as the reason for a hospital stay. In 1972-1981, codes of "21" and "22" are used to identify the different sources of the information. For 1996 forward, persons who were not asked a direct question about congenital heart disease, 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 congenital heart disease record.

1972 and 1978[show more]

1979 to 1996[show more]

Related Congenital Heart Disease Variables
The nearest equivalent of CONGHARTEVC for 1997 forward is CONGHARTEV (Ever had congenital heart disease).

Comparability

As with all of the person-level condition variables created by IHIS from condition records prior to 1997, the universe for CONGHARTEVC is substantially different for 1978 forward than it is for years prior to 1978. Beginning in 1978, only persons living in 1/6 of households, rather than all persons, were asked a direct question about ever having congenital heart disease. This change requires that different weight variables be used depending on which years of data are analyzed. See the "Description" tab for details.

Researchers should use caution when comparing prevalence estimates derived from CONGHARTEVC (pre-1997) and CONGHARTEV (post-1997), as the manner of collecting information about congenital heart disease differs over time. To compare this condition between the pre-1997 and post-1997 periods, users may want to limit their analysis to persons responding only to a direct survey question.

There is a change in the way "Yes" responses are coded over time, reflecting the change in the source of information. See the User Note on Condition Records and Condition Variables for details about the composite coding scheme employed by IHIS.

Universe

Availability

• 1972, 1978-1996

Weights

• 1972 : PERWEIGHT
• 1978-1996 : CONDWT5