Introduction to BHPS using Stata

Date: 28th-29th November
Venue: Social Science Research Centre at the University of Essex campus, Colchester

This course is aimed at new users of the BHPS or those who have so far made use only of simpler aspects of the data. The underlying structure of the BHPS is complex, with various different data about individuals and the households in which they live across time. The BHPS team has tried to make this structure as transparent as possible through the way data is organised. However, even the number of different data sets can appear daunting. This course aims to guide the user through these apparent complexities, and ensure that they can effectively make use of as much of the data as they require for their own research projects.

The main focus is on the data reorganisation techniques required for different types of cross-sectional and longitudinal research, rather than the statistical techniques themselves, but it is informed by the ways in which data require to be organised for different statistical techniques.

Participants will learn about the way the BHPS is designed, which data are collected, how they are collected and how the data are structured and stored. By the end of the two day course, the participant will have a thorough knowledge of the BHPS, from survey design to data-set structure, and will have the tools to make the most of a rich, but complex, data set.

A basic working knowledge of Stata is assumed. For more information and to see course prerequisites please go to the website http://www.iser.essex.ac.uk/bhps/courses/stata-intro

Introduction to Understanding Society – the UK Household Longitudinal Study

Date & time: November 29, 2011 13:00
Venue: Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER), University of Essex, Colchester, CO4 3SQ, UK.

To register to attend this lunchtime seminar, or for more details, please email Victoria Nolan vlnolan@essex.ac.uk. The seminar will be held in the Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) seminar room (on the ground floor) – it is free of charge and a buffet lunch will be available from 13:00.

This lunchtime seminar will provide an essential overview of the Understanding Society survey and its content, data access, data structure and documentation. It will be of interest to anyone who is planning to access and use the new Understanding Society data for their research.

This seminar provides a fantastic opportunity to get to know the survey and the possibilities for research based on the Understanding Society data. It will be presented by Gundi Knies, a Senior Research Officer at ISER who has been closely involved with the Understanding Society project from the outset. This seminar is an opportunity not to be missed, to be one of the first to gain a detailed picture of the enormous research potential of this new dataset.

Understanding Society now includes the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) sample, thus extending the analysis and research possibilities. Understanding Society greatly improves the range of longitudinal analyses that can be carried out given its larger sample size and its in-built design features such as data linkages and inclusion of an ethnic minority boost sample. For researchers using the BHPS, there is an Introduction to BHPS using Stata course being held at the University of Essex on 28th and 29th November.

New Stata Journal 2011_1

The most recent Stata Journal Volume 11, Number 1 is now available for RLAB members in the library under M:\STATA JOURNAL.

Of interest to SERC staff in particular might be the article on Stata utilities for geocoding and generating travel time and travel distance information (A. Ozimek and D. Miles)

The full Journal contents includes:

Articles and Columns
A procedure to tabulate and plot results after flexible modeling of a quantitative Covariate (N. Orsini and S. Greenland)
Nonparametric item response theory using Stata. (J.-B. Hardouin, A. Bonnaud-Antignac, and V. S´ebille)
Visualization of social networks in Stata using multidimensional scaling (R. Corten)
Pointwise confidence intervals for the covariate-adjusted survivor function in the Cox model (M. Cefalu)
Estimation of hurdle models for overdispersed count data (H. Farbmacher)
Right-censored Poisson regression model (R. Raciborski)
Stata utilities for geocoding and generating travel time and travel distance information (A. Ozimek and D. Miles)
eq5d: A command to calculate index values for the EQ-5D quality-of-life instrument. (J. M. Ramos-Go˜ni and O. Rivero-Arias)
Speaking Stata: MMXI and all that: Handling Roman numerals within Stata (N. J. Cox)
Notes and Comments
Stata tip 94: Manipulation of prediction parameters for parametric survival regression models (T. Boswell and R. G. Gutierrez)
Stata tip 95: Estimation of error covariances in a linear model (N. J. Horton)
Stata tip 96: Cube roots (N. J. Cox)
Software Updates

For RLAB staff who do not have access to the library please contact the RLAB data manager.
For staff outside RLAB who wish to access the stata journal please go to http://www.stata-journal.com/

World Bank Development Data in Stata

WBOPENDATA has been added to the utilities available through the RLAB stata licenses.

If you have your own stata license and would like to install WBOPENDATA the command is:

ssc install wbopendata

WBOPENDATA draws from the main World Bank collections of development indicators, compiled from officially-recognized international sources, and made available through the World Bank Open Data Initiative, and presents the most current and accurate global development data available, and includes national, regional and global estimates. Users can chose from one of three of the languages supported by the database, namely, English, Spanish, or French. Three possible downloads options are currently supported: country - all indicators for all years for a single country. topic - all indicators within a specific topic, for all years and all countries. indicator - all years for all countries for a single indicator. Users can also choose to have the data displayed in either the wide or long format (wide is the default option).

For example, to download all data available for the Philippines for all years, type:

wbopendata, country(phl) clear

This returns data for 972 indicators from 1960 to the latest year available. The default data display is in wide format.

The list of countries, topics, and indicators and their corresponding codes are documented in the help file (see -help wbopendata-).

Introduction to the BHPS using Stata

25th-26th November 2010, ISER, Essex University.

The course is aimed at new users of British Household Panel Study, with a basic working knowledge of Stata.

The main focus is on the data reorganisation techniques required for different types of cross sectional and longitudinal research, rather than the statistical techniques themselves.

There is no charge for the course, but a refundable deposit of £100 is required to secure a place on the course.

For more information see http://www.iser.essex.ac.uk/survey/bhps/courses/stata-intro

Path Analysis using STATA

A help page for carrying out path analysis using pathreg, discovered and recommended by David Marsden

http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/faq/pathreg.htm

STATA Course

There will be a STATA course running for RLAB members next term. The sessions will take place on Tuesdays between 5.30 and 7.30 from 13th January-3rd March.

The course will be split into sections:

the first three weeks will cover information for beginners the fourth week will be an introduction to programming (can be attended by beginners, and will be a requirement for anyone taking the more advanced programming sessions) the fifth-seventh weeks will cover more advanced programming and matrix programming.
the eighth week is reserved in case of overrun

I will email more details about what the course will cover as soon as I can, but wanted to give as much warning as possible so you can put it in your diary.

The course is free as costs are covered by the centres, however people who reserve places and subsequently drop out without explanation may be asked to reimburse their centre with the cost of the sessions missed, so please don't book for the sake of it.

Tanvi