Key Concepts About Recoding Variables in NHANES I
Recoding is an important step for preparing an analytical
dataset. You may want to recode variables to create new variables
that fit your analytic needs. Recoding variables is useful in
multiple scenarios, such as:
- recoding a categorical variable (e.g.,
education, heart attack, stroke),
- recoding a continuous variable (e.g., age) into
a categorical variable (e.g. age group),
- combining several variables to create a new
variable (e.g., hypertension condition, body mass index), and
- defining a disease or condition based on
certain cut-off values (e.g., high cholesterol).