Technical Report - Donegal Traveller's Project

Health Survey FindingsAnalysis Strategy forTechnical Report 1Data Cleaning and PreparationThe data was received from the field in a raw electronic format (SQL database), with the responses forthe census and all the surveys in one single database. The database also included files for a number ofinterview outcomes, including refusals, unavailable or moved families. It was therefore necessary for thequestionnaire and database programmer to go through cleaning and restructuring at the level of theSQL database. This was then followed by conversion to an SPSS database. The main tasks in the datacleaning and preparation process were:• Removal of duplicate and invalid files and addition of files that had not been uploaded but retrievedfrom laptops that were returned from the field.• Renaming and restructuring of variables into an analysable and interpretable format.• Combining the proxy-answered variables of the adult Health Status and Service Utilisation Surveyswith their directly-answered counterparts.• Creation of individual-level demographic data files from family level files that nested demographicdata for several individuals of the same family.Because ROI data was received before the NI data, all the processes were initially carried out on the ROIdatabase. The data cleaning and transformation syntax generated was then customised to suit the NIvariables and any issues specific to the NI database, before it was run on the NI database.AnalysisThe analysis was carried out in 2 rounds. The first round ran in tandem with the data cleaning andpreparation process. ROI data was initially partitioned into the constituent census, child and adultsurveys. The study team data analysts attended a training session where the structure of the databasesand the questionnaire were explained. They were supplied with an analysis and reporting programmeprepared by the study’s information technology (IT) group. The programme produces standard reportsof census/survey response percentages as well as age and gender breakdown for the survey responses.Each analyst had to customise the programme into a census- or survey-specific programme. Theyreceived training on the process to operate their analysis, and all analysts submitted a complete reportincluding their analysis programmes once completed. Finalised census- and survey-specific analysisprogrammes were then generated, including an adjusted version for the NI database. Finally, thecleaned and finalised analysis syntaxes were rerun on the final databases, in a second round of analysis.Respondents did not answer every question, which created a variation in the response rates acrossthe questions. Missing values were not inputted and the reported percentages are based only onthe number of people who responded to the question, excluding those who responded with ‘Don’tknow’ or ‘Refused’ as well as those who did not respond. That is there is a difference in the number ofresponse reported for each variable. For multiple response sets, the percentages were based on thosewho selected at least one response, excluding those selecting ‘Don’t know’ or ‘Refused’ and those whodid not select any option. Furthermore, the total number of Travellers who responded to each subquestionnaireis calculated from the maximal valid response to an item within that sub-questionnaire.63