New guide on analysing MCS using SPSS

It is now possible to use the SPSS package to analyse data from the Millennium Cohort Study – this guide shows you how.

The Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) over-samples certain wards containing larger numbers of ethnic minority residents, those in Wales and Scotland, and areas of high deprivation.  This means the data have to be weighted back up in order to be representative of the population as a whole.

Until recently this meant researchers could not use the SPSS analysis package for MCS research, but used other packages such as STATA, which were better at handling the issue of weighting.  However, the Complex Samples Module in SPSS now makes this possible.

This document describes how to use the Complex Sample settings in SPSS to analyse MCS data.  It describes how to set up Complex Samples Plan files, analyse data using the CS Plans and perform subgroup analyses using CS Plans.  These are shown both through menus and syntax.

The document is aimed at those who are already familiar with SPSS, but not with using its Complex Samples module.

Elizabeth M. Jones and Sosthenes C. Ketende: Millennium Cohort Study: User’s Guide to Analysing MCS Data Using SPSS, Nov 2010.