LSACSETUP: Stata module to create a longitudinal dataset for Growing Up in Australia: The Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC)

lsacsetup creates a longitudinal dataset for Growing Up in Australia: The Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC), Australia's flagship birth cohort study, using a single line of Stata code. LSAC data are disseminated as a collection of cross-sectional files which need to be combined by the user. The command lsacsetup is designed to substantially simplify and speed up the process of combining the information in LSAC into a single analytic dataset in long format. lsacsetup supports variables contained in the LSAC longitudinal files (e.g. lsacgrb0), the household files (e.g. plegrhhb), and the NAPLAN files (e.g. lsacnaplanacara_gr) featured in the general release of LSAC. Users are required to specify the directories in which the original data is located and where the new file will be stored; the variables in the longitudinal LSAC files that are required; the preferred name for the longitudinal dataset to be created; and the data release used. Additionally, users have the option to specify whether they require any variables from the household or NAPLAN data files, and whether they wish to use information from LSAC's between-wave questionnaires (a.k.a. waves 2.5 and 3.5). lsacsetup currently supports only the general release of LSAC and does not handle variables from the PLE, TUD or Medicare data files.