Why do I find a lot of 3s in birth, death, and hospital admission tables and in the AIDS data?
In order to maintain the confidentiality of birth, death, and hospital admission records, values between 1 and 5 cases are suppressed in birth, death, and hospital admission tables and values smaller than 5 (including 0!) are suppressed in the AIDS data.. In order to avoid creating problems when users import these tables into spreadsheets and other software packages, a “3” or “2” is placed into these cells instead of some character such as an asterisk. If you do not want these “false” numbers to appear in your tables, simply replace them with an *.
Related Questions
- Patients lost to follow-up are eliminated from the data. Does this mean they are eliminated entirely (no risk, death, or hospital days), or are they eliminated as of the last known day of follow-up?
- Why do I find a lot of 3s in birth, death, and hospital admission tables I create in Module 3 (Two-way Tables) and in the AIDS data in Module 1 or 2?
- When (after hospital admission) should investigators access the online PediBIRN data registry to enter new data regarding an eligible subject?
