Heaping in Retrospective Data: Insights from Malaysian Family Life Surveys' Breastfeeding Data

Jacob Alex Klerman

Published 1993

Retrospectively recorded breastfeeding durations show pronounced heaping at 12, 24, and 36 months. Using the interview-reinterview component of the Malaysian Family Life Survey (MFLS), this paper shows that the heaped responses are not drawn from adjacent durations, as is often assumed in the literature. The paper then proposes and estimates a joint model of breastfeeding duration and the recorded duration of breastfeeding conditional on the true duration. The estimated regression coefficients determining the true duration are sensitive in magnitude--and in one case sign--to the correction for imprecise response.

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Document Details

  • Copyright: RAND Corporation
  • Availability: Web-Only
  • Year: 1993
  • Pages: 49
  • Document Number: DRU-384-NICHD

Citation

RAND Style Manual
Klerman, Jacob Alex, Heaping in Retrospective Data: Insights from Malaysian Family Life Surveys' Breastfeeding Data, RAND Corporation, DRU-384-NICHD, 1993. As of September 11, 2024: https://www.rand.org/pubs/drafts/DRU384.html
Chicago Manual of Style
Klerman, Jacob Alex, Heaping in Retrospective Data: Insights from Malaysian Family Life Surveys' Breastfeeding Data. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 1993. https://www.rand.org/pubs/drafts/DRU384.html.
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