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AHS: Correction for 2005-2007 National Datasets

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From: American Housing Survey (AHS) ListServ <ahs@huduser.gov>

The U.S. Census Bureau recently discovered a data error affecting the American Housing Survey (AHS) microdata files for the 2005 and 2007 national surveys. In each survey year, the AHS adds a certain number of new sample cases to reflect new construction and planned improvements in the sampling design. The 2005 survey was the first in which these new cases were drawn from a sampling frame based on the 2000 Decennial Census. The AHS is a longitudinal survey, and to protect confidentiality the microdata reports metropolitan area membership on the basis of the 1980 OMB metropolitan area definitions. Consequently, the Census Bureau recoded the new 2000-based cases to reflect the older definition. Unfortunately, a programming error in this recoding process resulted in all new cases being classified as "nonmetropolitan." This error was not discovered until the data from the 2009 AHS was being prepared for release.

INTERIM SOLUTION
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HUD and the Census Bureau plan to release complete new versions of the 2005 and 2007 national AHS datasets in the summer of 2010. As an interim solution, the Census Bureau has provided HUD with "skinny files" that contain the variables needed to patch existing datasets with the new values. HUD is making available "patch kits" containing these files along with instructions and software to make the corrections.

Each patch kit contains these files, with skinny files for the appropriate year:

* The updated data file in SAS format
* The updated data file in comma separated values (CSV) ASCII format
* An instruction file, in Microsoft Word format
* A SAS file to merge the skinny file into the main SAS dataset
* A Microsoft Excel spreadsheet showing the changes in aggregate totals for some important housing characteristics.

These patch files are now available for download from the HUD USER web site.

2005: https://www.huduser.gov/portal/datasets/ahs.html
2007: https://www.huduser.gov/portal/datasets/ahs.html

Dav Vandenbroucke
Senior Economist
U.S. Dept. HUD
david.a.vandenbroucke@hud.gov
202-402-5890

I disclaim any disclaimers.