Description

MASTCHOL indicates whether the person used massage to treat high cholesterol problems. Please see the Comparability and Universe tabs for more information on how this variable was constructed.

For a complete list of conditions that persons could report treating using complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) therapies, please see TCONMOST1 or use the IPUMS NHIS search function and drop down menus.

Comparability

Prior to 2012, in universe persons were asked about a series of specific health problems, symptoms, or conditions they may have treated with different complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) therapies. Beginning in 2012, persons were instead asked to select three of sixteen therapies that were most important and only asked the series of questions related to treating health problems, symptoms, or conditions about these top three therapies. Respondents were only asked follow-up questions about the CAM therapies that they included among their top three CAM therapies. Persons who did not include massage among their top three CAM therapies are recording as responding "no" to MASTCHOL. For more information on the construction of this variable, please see TABDOM1. There are no comparability issues.

Universe

Availability

• 2002, 2007, 2012

Weights

• 2002, 2007 : SAMPWEIGHT
• 2012 : SUPP4WT