Question Concordance Help

Included Data

The Health and Retirement Study Question Concordance includes codebook data for Core and Exit datasets collected in all biennial interview years. Note: Concordance results may not include all variables for all waves. Please refer to the actual codebook to confirm the presence and/or location of variables in the data.

The Text Search field searches the Variable Name, Base Name, Label, Question Text, Category, Subcategory, and Detail columns (see below for column descriptions).

Text Search Tips

Use quotes to search an exact phrase

  • Without quotes, questions containing any of the search terms will be returned.

Three character (or fewer) words are ignored

  • Unless included in an exact phrase also containing longer words, words fewer than four characters long are ignored.

Use an asterisk (*) as a wildcard character to search partial words or variable names.

  • For example, NJ062* returns NJ062M.

Use +word to require a word, and -word to exclude a word

  • For example, this search would return questions that contain the word hypertension, but do not contain the word medication:

    +hypertension -medication
    

Filters

Refine your search results by selecting one or more filters.

Filter Descriptions

Core, Exit

  • Limit your search to either Core or Exit datasets.

Modules

Alt Wave

  • Limit your search to questions that are only asked every second, third, or fourth wave. Details are returned in the "Alternate Wave?" column.

Cross Wave

  • Limit your search to questions with cross-reference information that allows comparison of similar questions across waves going back to 1995. Details are returned in the "Cross-Wave Equivalents" column.

Public, Masked

  • Questions flagged as "masked" have been deleted from the public dataset, but are sometimes available as Restricted Data. Select the Public filter to exclude these questions, or the Masked filter to limit your results to these questions. Public/Masked status is returned in the "Release Type" column.

Years

  • Limit your search to questions from the selected year(s).

Columns

By default, not all search result columns are visible. Use the Columns button in the search results header to select the columns you want to see.

Column Descriptions

Wave

  • The dataset in which the question appears.

Section

  • The survey section in which the question appears. An overview of section contents for each biennial survey can be found on the Questionnaires page. Note that sections do not necessarily match across waves.

Variable Name

  • The primary alphanumeric identifier for the question. From 1992-2000, variable names were inconsistent across waves. The link in this column leads directly to the question in the corresponding codebook.

Base Name

  • Questions replicated across waves have been assigned a common Base Name to facilitate cross-wave comparison. Searching a specific Base Name will return all versions of the replicated question going back to 1995.

Label

  • A descriptive text identifier for the question.

Question Text

  • The full question text.

Category, Subcategory, Detail

  • Keywords applied to the question to aid the Text Search function.

Release Type

  • Questions flagged as "masked" have been deleted from the public dataset, but are sometimes available as Restricted Data.

Alternate Wave?

  • Some questions are asked only every second, third, or fourth wave. Note that alternate wave questions can still be included in the codebooks for waves that do not ask them. This is indicated by "Yes, NOT asked this wave."

Cross-Wave Equivalents

  • For select questions, the link in this column leads to a list of equivalent questions across waves. Available only for 1995 through 2000 (Core) and 2002 onward (Core and Exit).