Race/ethnicity in YRBS

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 row containing missing values or values outside the scale range
## (`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