cchsflow

cchsflow harmonizes variables from the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) to enable consistent analysis across multiple survey cycles for longitudinal population health research.

Key Features:

• Variable Harmonization: Identifies historical variable names and category structures and recodes them to standardized variable names and labels across CCHS cycles.
• Worksheets as Blueprint: Uses curated worksheets that map variable names, categories, and target recodes to guide harmonization across cycles.
• Data Integration: Enables combination of harmonized variables across CCHS cycles (2001–2014) to produce unified datasets for longitudinal analyses.
• Extensive Variable Support: Supports over 160 CCHS variables and produces combined datasets covering more than one million respondents.

Scientific Applications:

• Longitudinal population health analysis: Facilitates analysis of trends in health outcomes across time using harmonized CCHS data.
• Policy impact evaluation: Enables comparison of standardized survey measures across cycles to assess policy impacts.
• Demographic change analysis: Supports analysis of demographic shifts over time within the Canadian population using combined CCHS cycles.

Methodology:

Uses curated worksheets to identify variable names, historical names, and category structures, then recodes and standardizes variables across CCHS cycles and combines the harmonized data into unified datasets.