With regard to bridging from the October 30, 1997 revision of Statistical Policy Directive No. 15, Race and Ethnic Standards for Federal Statistics and Administrative Reporting to "the Old OMB Standards," the 1999 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) Public Use Data Release: NHIS Survey Description, Appendix II ("Race and Hispanic Origin in the 1999 NHIS"), says:

Thus, self-reported racial data from 1999 forward collected under the October 30, 1997 revision of Statistical Policy Directive No. 15, Race and Ethnic Standards for Federal Statistics and Administrative Reporting, has been recoded for public release, by the National Center for Health Statistics, consistent with the pre-1997 OMB standards.

As noted in the 1999 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) Public Use Data Release: NHIS Survey Description, Appendix II ("Race and Hispanic Origin in the 1999 NHIS"):

The reason for this, as noted in the National Center for Health Statistics' Race and Hispanic Origin Information home page, is that in "the 2000 survey year, the NHIS began implementation of hot-deck imputation of race and Hispanic origin, in order to improve the overall quality of the data. Similar to the editing procedures, the imputation procedures are based on methods developed by the U.S. Bureau of the Census. Race and Hispanic origin are first imputed from within a household, if available. If not, race and Hispanic origin are imputed between households which are matched by Hispanic origin within a small geographic area." Thus, starting in 2000, all persons in the IPUMS NHIS are a member of some racial category.

There are several other variables researchers may find useful in conjunction with, or as an alternative to, RACEBR. One of the most important of those other variable is RACENEW (1999 forward) which provides information on self-reported, main racial background of all persons, using the October 30, 1997 revision of Statistical Policy Directive No. 15, Race and Ethnic Standards for Federal Statistics and Administrative Reporting. In addition, RACESR (1978 forward) provides information on self-reported, main racial background, using the pre-1997 Office of Management and Budget's (OMB's) Statistical Policy Directive No. 15, Race and Ethnic Standards for Federal Statistics and Administrative Reporting. RACEA (1969-1977) reports the interviewer-identified race of all persons, and for 1978 forward, the self-reported, main racial background of all persons using the pre-1997 Office of Management and Budget's (OMB's) Statistical Policy Directive No. 15 (Race and Ethnic Standards for Federal Statistics and Administrative Reporting). RACEID (1969-1979) reports the interviewer-identified race of all persons.

Researchers might also want to utilize the variables relating to Hispanic ethnicity (HISPETH, (1976 forward)), or global region of birth (REGIONBR, 2000 forward) in their analyses.

More information about race and Hispanic ethnicity variables appearing in the NHIS can be found on the National Center for Health Statistic's Race and Hispanic Origin Information home page.