Tabulate Categories With Disjoint Values

At times it is useful to create categories in a tabulation that contain disjoint values. For example, if you have the following value set for marital status where divorced is code 2 and you wish to create a table with only two categories: "divorced" and "not divorced".

To create such a table, we need a value set that contains only the two categories divorced and not divorced. Creating the category for "divorced" is simple, it includes only the value 2. The "not divorced" category, however, needs to contain the value 1 (Married) plus the values 3, 4 and 5 (Separated, Widowed, Never Married). These values do not make up a single range. In order to create the category you must create two entries in the value set, one that contains the value 1 and the second that contains the values 3 through 5. The first entry must contain the label for the category and the label for the second entry must be a single space character. CSPro recognizes the single space as a continuation of the previous category rather than a separate category. In this case it will merge the value range in the second entry with that of the first entry, creating a single category that includes the value 1 and the values 3 through 5.

It is important that you use a space rather than no text at all since CSPro will treat an empty label all as a new category in the value set. You can tell when CSPro has combined the entries by the absence of the notes box in the second entry.

You can combine any number of entries in the value set into a single category.

See also: Implications of Data Dictionary Value Sets