PALS 2006

Question

I have a question regarding the Participation and Activity Limitation Survey, 2006. I downloaded the PALS data, looking for the variable "ADFT_Q01 " (regarding autism developmental disability) , but it is not in the data set. Do you know why?

Answer

To collect information on adults whose everyday activities are limited because of a condition or health problem, the PALS questionnaire identifies ten types of disabilities. However, for reasons of confidentiality related to the PUMF, four types of disabilities were grouped as “Other.” As a result, the typology provided to PUMF users contains seven types of disabilities, namely hearing, seeing, speech, mobility, agility, pain and “other” disabilities. The PALS 2006 Technical and Methodological report contains a description of this typology for adults.

PALS 2006 Technical and Methodological report link:

http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/89-628-x/89-628-x2007001-eng.htm

Variable in PUMP file: OTH_LIM (Other Limitation Derived Variable (Learning, Memory, Development, Psychological, Unknown))

A note of caution in the use of the developmental variable as a measure of autism, as autism is only of many developmental disabilities represented by this variable.

Included are links to more recent information that may be useful.

Developmental disabilities among Canadians aged 15 years and older, 2012 Released February 29th 2016

http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/89-654-x/89-654-x2015003-eng.htm

115-0003: Adults with disabilities, by type, sex and age group, for Canada, provinces and territories.

http://www5.statcan.gc.ca/cansim/a26?lang=eng&retrLang=eng&id=1150003&&pattern=&stByVal=1&p1=1&p2=50&tabMode=dataTable&csid=

115-0004: Adults with disabilities, by severity, sex and age group, Canada, provinces and territories.

http://www5.statcan.gc.ca/cansim/a26?lang=eng&retrLang=eng&id=1150004&&pattern=&stByVal=1&p1=1&p2=50&tabMode=dataTable&csid=

PALS 2006 Children

Question

I need to download the data from the PALS survey conducted by Statistics Canada in 2006. The only data available in the Odesi dataset is the adult dataset. Do you know where I can download the data for participants who were children <15 years of age?

Answer

I have received a response back from subject matter, and unfortunately there was no PUMF created for the <15 year population.

Young Children with Disabilities

Question

A student is looking for the number of children in Nova Scotia under the age of 5 with diagnosed/ suspected disabilities or special needs. PALS (2006) does offer some tables for the 5 to 14 age group, but I can’t see anything for the youngest ages. Is there a source that I should be exploring?

Answer

There are the following tables, from this publication: Participation and Activity Limitation Survey 2006: Tables and the 0-4 age group is available at the provincial level.

Participation and Activity Limitation Survey (PALS) Question

Question

Good afternoon everyone!

I have another PALS question. We're looking at the PUMF file for 2006 and if I select ONLY those individuals with a disability (DISAB = 1) and those individuals whose income source is social assistance (AHUI_Q32F = 1).. then look at hours worked (HOURSP) - I'm left with 2130 respondents where the hours worked is Not Applicable, age <15 yrs, institutional residents.

Does this make sense? I have a graduate student who is looking at this particular question and would like to access the Master file - but is very concerned about this result. Would it be possible to check with the Authoring division to see whether this truly is the case? Is there any way to see whether there are any individuals with HOURSP that have a disability and have social assistance? This will help us determine whether the graduate student should pursue this line of inquiry or not.

Answer

A methodologist in the author division provided the following response to your question about the PALS 2006 PUMF:

"If you are working with the disabled population (DISAB=1), then you don't want to look at the variable HOURSP on the PUMF. Instead, you want to use the equivalent variable AEDE_Q01. The reason is that HOURSP is derived from the question on hours worked that was asked on Census. The same question was asked again on PALS to those who had a limitation (variable AEDE_Q01) and who had previously said they worked (ALFS_Q01=1). Since PALS came AFTER census, it was preferable to use this variable when possible (i.e. when DISAB=1) because it is more recent. This is why we put HOURSP=NA, age<15, institution residents, for everyone with a disability (because for this population, a more up to date variable exists).

Recap: If DISAB=1 and you want to look at the hours worked, you use AEDE_Q01. If DISAB=0, then you use HOURSP."

PALS 2006

Question

I had to do some deep reading to remember why the frequencies in PALS 2006 are so different between the full data set (72,167 cases) and the user guide (17,423 cases), and once again thrilled to the charming explanation of the differences between the original documented record layout and the SAS and SPSS syntax files 8-)

However, now I have a new query. On page 322 of the User guide, we find the following frequencies for variable TENURP:

-5 Not stated 0 0
1 BAND HOUSING 79 13,329
2 NOT APPLICABLE 4,573 1,184,265
3 OWNED BY MEMBER OF HHLD 12,771 2,965,102
4 RENTED 0 0
====== =========
17,423 4,162,696

Hmmmmmmmmmm - no renters anywhere in Canada! And about 26.2% of us live in not applicable housing...the mind boggles, but at least in the midst of Easter, one can think of a few explanations, although I would be sorry to see any of them in a codebook.

Unfortunately, the SAS and SPSS syntax files also contain this error, so the odesi, SDA, and Equinox implementations of this file are all wrong.

Could we get confirmation from the relevant department that value 2 should be 'rented', and 4 'not applicable'?

Thanks in advance!


Answer

Our contacts have looked into your question with a methodologist and there is an error in the PALS 2006 user guide for the variable TENURP. For your reference, the explanation I received from our contacts follows.

"It turns out that there was a system error in the dictionary database when switching from RDC to PUMF resulting in discrepancies in how categories were labeled.

The original PUMF statistics are:
79 = "Band Housing"
4,573 = "Not Applicable"
12,771 = "Owned"
0 = "Rent"

The correct PUMF statistics are:
79 = "Not Applicable"
4,573 = "Band Housing and Rented" (i.e., Rented is a not a separate category in PUMF)
12,771 = "Owned"

The "Not stated" and "Rented" should have been removed from PUMF hence why there are 0 counts for both. The corresponding weights are the same."

I have asked our contacts for a corrected version of the user guide and of any other files affected by this error. We will make them available through the DLI FTP and website as soon as we receive them.

Thank you once for bringing this to our attention.

Participation and Activity Limitation Survey Question Re: Children

Question

A UBC hospital researcher is planning to use PALS, but her interest is in the children surveyed, not the adult population. This presents a problem because the PUMF in the DLI collection does not include children 5-14. To quote the User's Guide:

For purposes of the PUMF, analysts based themselves on the 28,908 persons aged 15 and over who responded to the survey.

The researcher has not been able to contact the person identified in the release in The Daily or that person's successor.

She would really like to know whether there will be a PUMF for the children's file. She has been in contact with the local Research Data Centre and will work there if necessary, but wants an answer as to the eventual availability of a children's PUMF.

Answer

There is no PUMF for the PALS children's file.

Some results are available in "A profile of disability in Canada, 2001", catalogue number 89-577-XIE. The Profile of disability among children is available at the following link:
http://www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/89-577-XIE/children.htm

More than likely, the researcher may need additional information not covered in the previous profile. The researcher's options are:

1) Access the PALS file via the RDCs
2) Order custom tabulations

Participation and Activity Limitation Survey Interview Manual and Training Guide

Question

A researcher here needs additional documentation for the PALS survey. Specifically, he found reference in the existing documentation to a PALS 2001 training guide and an interviewer manual. Would it be possible to obtain these two additional pieces of documentation under DLI?

Answer

The files are now available at the following locations:

WEB: http://www.statcan.ca/english/Dli/Data/Ftp/pals/pals2001.htm
FTP: /ftp/dli/pals/2001/doc

Visible Disabilities

Question

A student here needs some data, (incl. demographic information) on visible disability in Canada and in Toronto. The sources
available to me seem only to go down to the province level, although a print publication from the 1991 PALS has some information for selected CMAs. Are there any solutions that won't require either a custom tab or a visit to an RDC?

Response

Unfortunately the PALS 2001 sample design doesn't get at the CMA level. All our publications are at the provincial level.

PALS 2001

Question

A student who wants to use the PALS 2001 survey has asked me where or if there is a designation for province of residence. She could not find a variable relating to it. I have looked through the
questionnaire, where I saw that province information was collected at the beginning and the end of it. Using our access to IDLS, however, I do not see either a direct or derived variable relating to province. Have we overlooked something?

Looking at the user's guide, there is no province variable listed in the data dictionary.

Section 6.5, which talks about non-disclosure, mentions that "the level of detail of the pumf is not as fine as that of the master file ... Actions were also taken to make the microdata file more secure ... These actions concern the geography included in the file, ..." Is this the first PUMF where geography is completely suppressed?

Answer

It was decided that the richness of this survey was within the variables rather than the geography. A conscious decision was made to put as much detail as possible in the file
therefore sacrificing geography.

Unfortunately variable details that were released in previous versions of surveys do not always get approved for release with the current version. There could be a number of reasons for this including sample size, response rate, complexity and level of detail of questions asked etc. Most of all there are increased confidentiality concerns in all of our surveys. In fact I am of the opinion that previous surveys would not contain the same level of detail now if they were brought before the Microdata Release Committee.

Each time a survey manager makes changes to a public use file and brings it before the Release Committee requires the expenditure of a lot of time and resources. At this point in time it would be beyond the means of the budget to try and add even one additional variable to a released file.
Even one variable requires the manager to go through the entire release process - which could cost close to $50,000 and take months to do. Once a file is released, unless it is to fix an errors in the data, the actual data file is rarely altered.