Description

For all persons, DENCOND indicates whether a person reported an acute dental condition. Acute refers to conditions that ordinarily last less than 3 months, were first noticed less than 3 months before the interview, and were serious enough to have had an impact on behavior. The condition must have caused the person to cut down for at least half a day on the things he or she usually does or, caused the person to contact a physician.

There is little documentation on the survey questions used for DENCOND; an acute condition record could be generated from the respondent's report of disability days, doctor visits and/or hospitalizations. The ICD-9 codes used in the recode are the following: 520. ,6-9; 521. ,0-5,7-9; 522, 523, and 525.

Chronic dental problems are not included.

Related Variables

Additional information is available for activity restrictions caused by an acute dental condition.

• RADAY2WKDEN: indicates the total number of the person stayed in bed or cut down on their work, school, or other normal activities due to an acute dental condition

• BDDAY2WKDEN: indicates the number of days in the past two weeks that the person stayed in bed more than half a day due to an acute dental condition

• SLDAY2WKDEN: indicates the number of days in the past two weeks that the person missed half a day from school due to an acute dental condition

• WLDAY2WKDEN: indicates the number of days in the past two weeks that the person missed more than half a day of work due to an acute dental condition

Comparability

There are no comparability issues.

Note, however, that the rules used to construct this variable from condition records may differ from those used to construct the IPUMS NHIS conditions variables. For general information about the construction of IHIS variables from the pre-1997 condition records, see the User Note on Condition Records and Condition Variables.

Universe

Availability

• 1989

Weights

• 1989 : PERWEIGHT