I am using IPUMS NHIS data from 2022 for a class project and have a question about weights.
I want to use the urban-rural count classification variable, URBRRL, but there are no weights available for the variable. All my other variables of interest use SAMPWEIGHT so I was planning on using that since it’s the “most restrictive”, but I’m not positive that using SAMPWEIGHT would be the right move.
Are you able to tell me more about why there is no weight indicated for URBRRL and how I should account for that in my analysis?
Since URBRRL is provided for all respondents from 2019-onwards, SAMPWEIGHT is the correct weight to use in your analysis.
The additional complication with URBRRL (and why no weight is provided) is that it is a household-level variable, meaning that it can technically be analyzed either on the household or on the individual-level. For example, it can be used to estimate the percent of households in non-metropolitan areas which contained a person who ever had COVID (CVDDIAG). The NHIS used to provide a household-level weight (HHWEIGHT) for such analyses, which represented the inverse probability of household (rather than individual) selection into the sample. However, this variable was discontinued in the 2019 survey redesign when the survey stopped collecting data about all household members. This means that such household level analyses are not currently possible. However, you should not be concerned with using SAMPWEIGHT in conjunction with individual-level analyses that include URBRRL (e.g., calculating the share of people in non-metropolitan areas who ever had COVID). More information on weights is available on the IPUMS NHIS User Guide on Sampling Weights.