Data Dictionary for Child Care example

The IHDP intervention was implemented in the 1980’s and targeted low
birth weight (less than 2500 grams), pre-term children.  They were
recruited at the time of birth.  It provided high quality child care
and other services in their first 3 years of life.  The comparison
group was pulled from a survey conducted during the same time period
called the National Survey of Longitudinal Youth.  At the time of the
intervention many of the original survey participants (first recruited
in 1979) had children. We have data from those children and their
mothers for an overlapping set of variables (below) as the IHDP
children.

The intervention for low-birth-weight children is described by
- Brooks-Gunn, J., Liaw, F. R., and Klebanov, P. K. (1992). Effects of
  early intervention on cognitive function of low birth weight preterm
  infants. Journal of Pediatrics 120, 350–359.
- Hill, J. L., Brooks-Gunn, J., and Waldfogel, J. (2003). Sustained
  effects of high participation in an early intervention for
  low-birth-weight premature infants. Developmental Psychology 39,
  730–744.

Data columns

"momage"   
mom age at time of birth

"b.marr"   
indicator for whether mom was married at birth

"momed"    
mother’s education level at the time she gave birth

"work.dur" 
indicator for whether mom worked in the year before she gave birth

"prenatal" 
indicator for whether mom received prenatal care

"cig"     
 indicator for whether mom smoked cigarettes while pregnant

"booze"    
indicator for whether mom drank alcohol while pregnant

"sex"      
indicator for whether child was born male or female

"first"    
indicator for whether child was the first born for the mother

"bw"       
child’s birth weight

"bwg"      
indicator for whether child was born low birth weight

"preterm" 
number of weeks preterm child was born

"black", "hispanic", "white"    
indicators for child’s race/ethnicity

"lths", "hs", "ltcoll", "college"  
indicators for mother’s education at time of birth

"dayskidh" 
number of days child was in the hospital after being born

"st5", "st9", "st12", "st25", "st36", "st42", "st48", "st53"    
indicator for state where household resides 

"st99"  
indicator for whether family  was living in state served by the ihdp

"income"   
family income one year after the child was born

"treat"   
indicator for whether family was allowed to receive IHDP services (1 = yes) 

"ppvtr.36"
IQ measured at age 36 months