Race/ethnicity in YRBS

Thomas Lumley

03/09/2019

The usethnicity data set contains variables on race and ethnic identification from the 2017 Youth Risk Behaviour Survey, together with two variables on smoking behaviour. The YRBS is a multistage cluster-sampled survey, so valid inference about associations requires using survey design information. This subset of variables without weights is useful only for demonstration purposes.

library(rimu)
data(usethnicity)
head(usethnicity)
##   Q4 Q5 QN30 QN31
## 1  2  E    2    2
## 2  1       2    2
## 3  1  A    1    2
## 4  1       2    2
## 5  2  E    2    2
## 6  2  E    1    1

Question 4 asks Are you Hispanic or Latino?, and Question 5 asks for any of

that apply. In the data set, these five letters are pasted together into a single variable.

We need to split Q5 into its component letters. The method for character strings does this

race<-as.mr(usethnicity$Q5,"")
mtable(race)
##        A    B    C   D    E F G H
##  847 863 1014 3643 455 8306 5 1 7

There’s a spurious " " category from the string splitting, and the values F, G, and H are also invalid, so we need to remove them

race<-mr_drop(race,c(" ","F","G","H"))
mtable(race)
##    A    B    C   D    E
##  863 1014 3643 455 8306

We might want easier-to-recognise names for the categories

race <- mr_recode(race, AmIndian="A",Asian="B", Black="C", Pacific="D", White="E")

Now, Hispanic/Latino ethnicity is asked in a separate question. We convert it via the as.mr method for logical vectors, and then combine it with race

hispanic<-as.mr(usethnicity$Q4==1, "Hispanic")
ethnicity<-mr_union(race, hispanic)
ethnicity[101:120]
##  [1] "Black"                "Black"                "Black"               
##  [4] "Black"                "AmIndian+Black"       "Black"               
##  [7] "Black"                "Black"                "Black"               
## [10] "Black"                "Black"                "Black"               
## [13] "Black+?Hispanic"      "Black"                "Black"               
## [16] "Black"                "Black"                "Black"               
## [19] "AmIndian+Black+White" "Black"

The plot method shows co-occurence of the various race/ethnicity terms

plot(ethnicity,nsets=6)
## Warning: Removed 1 rows containing missing values (geom_bar).

Tabulations against other factor or multiple-response variables are possible with mtable. Note that mtable shows frequencies for each category; use as.character to get frequencies for combinations – do not use as.factor, which is not generic and so cannot have a mr method.

mtable(ethnicity, usethnicity$QN30)
##             1    2 <NA>
## AmIndian  242  466    0
## Asian     154  679    0
## Black     612 2000    0
## Pacific   120  256    0
## White    2112 4759    0
## Hispanic  889 2301    0
table(ethnicity %has% "Black", usethnicity$QN30)
##        
##            1    2
##   FALSE 2704 6596
##   TRUE   612 2000
table(ethnicity %hasonly% "Black", usethnicity$QN30)
##        
##            1    2
##   FALSE 2878 7015
##   TRUE   438 1581
table(as.character(ethnicity), usethnicity$QN30)
##                                              
##                                                  1    2
##                                                 27  106
##   AmIndian                                      40   65
##   AmIndian+Asian                                 0    1
##   AmIndian+Asian+Black                           1    2
##   AmIndian+Asian+Black+Pacific                   0    0
##   AmIndian+Asian+Black+Pacific+Hispanic          0    1
##   AmIndian+Asian+Black+Pacific+White             3    3
##   AmIndian+Asian+Black+Pacific+White+Hispanic    2    6
##   AmIndian+Asian+Black+White                     2    2
##   AmIndian+Asian+Black+White+Hispanic            1    1
##   AmIndian+Asian+Hispanic                        0    1
##   AmIndian+Asian+Pacific+Hispanic                1    0
##   AmIndian+Asian+Pacific+White                   0    1
##   AmIndian+Asian+White                           1    5
##   AmIndian+Asian+White+Hispanic                  0    1
##   AmIndian+Black                                11   48
##   AmIndian+Black+Hispanic                        3    5
##   AmIndian+Black+Pacific                         0    2
##   AmIndian+Black+Pacific+Hispanic                0    1
##   AmIndian+Black+Pacific+White                   1    0
##   AmIndian+Black+Pacific+White+Hispanic          1    3
##   AmIndian+Black+White                          13   20
##   AmIndian+Black+White+Hispanic                  5    7
##   AmIndian+Hispanic                             84  188
##   AmIndian+Pacific                               2    3
##   AmIndian+Pacific+Hispanic                      0    3
##   AmIndian+Pacific+White                         1    3
##   AmIndian+Pacific+White+Hispanic                0    2
##   AmIndian+White                                50   71
##   AmIndian+White+Hispanic                       20   21
##   Asian                                         80  489
##   Asian+Black                                    2   26
##   Asian+Black+Hispanic                           1    0
##   Asian+Black+Pacific                            1    2
##   Asian+Black+Pacific+Hispanic                   0    1
##   Asian+Black+Pacific+White                      0    0
##   Asian+Black+White                              3    4
##   Asian+Black+White+Hispanic                     2    1
##   Asian+Hispanic                                14   25
##   Asian+Pacific                                  8   15
##   Asian+Pacific+Hispanic                         3    2
##   Asian+Pacific+White                            5    9
##   Asian+Pacific+White+Hispanic                   3    2
##   Asian+White                                   19   71
##   Asian+White+Hispanic                           2    8
##   Black                                        438 1581
##   Black+Hispanic                                40  100
##   Black+Pacific                                  2   14
##   Black+Pacific+Hispanic                         6    6
##   Black+Pacific+White                            1    4
##   Black+Pacific+White+Hispanic                   3    1
##   Black+White                                   59  140
##   Black+White+Hispanic                          11   19
##   Hispanic                                     375 1010
##   Pacific                                       31   72
##   Pacific+Hispanic                              34   68
##   Pacific+White                                  8   26
##   Pacific+White+Hispanic                         4    6
##   White                                       1618 3510
##   White+Hispanic                               274  812