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AHS Microdata Resource Updates

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There have been two updates to the resources to help you use the American Housing Survey microdata:

  1. Value Labels Package for the 2011 AHS

    2. This zip file contains the files needed to set up SAS formats for most of the character variables in the 2011 AHS public use file. After running these programs, your SAS tabulations will show meaningful labels instead of value codes. For example, if you tabulate TENURE, instead of showing the values of 1,2,3, etc., it will show “owned,” “rented,” “no-cash renter,” etc. While this package is specific to SAS, the format.txt file in the zip archive is an ASCII file that defines all of the value labels. Non-SAS users may find it handy for copying and pasting the labels into syntax that works with other statistical packages. You can download this package from the AHS 2011 page on HUD USER,
    https://www.huduser.gov/portal/datasets/ahs.html.

  2. Variable Name Index

    3. The variable name index is a comma-separated values (*.csv) file that cross-references variable names and AHS survey years. You can use it to identify the years in which a particular variable appeared in the AHS PUF. The CSV format can be read by many different programs, such as Excel, SAS, MS-Access, R, etc. The new file updates the existing variable name index, including the variables in the 2011 PUF. You can download the variable name index from https://www.huduser.gov/portal/datasets/ahs.html, in the “technical supplements” section.

You may be interested to know that the 2013 AHS data collection has begun. As of May 1, 200 interviews had been completed.

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

 

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