Key Concepts about Merging and Appending NHANES Data for CVX Analyses

In addition to combining variables from different files, a typical NHANES analytic dataset will include data from two or more NHANES cycles. You will need to merge data to combine variables from different data files collected during the same cycle and append data files to combine data from different years. Now that you’ve downloaded the necessary data from the 2001-2002 and 2003-2004 NHANES cycles, you are ready to combine the DEMO and CVX files using the merge and append functions. The resulting dataset will form the basis for your analytic dataset.