SAHIE data with getCensus() not generating all age/sex/race groups

[aniruhil]

sahie16 <- getCensus(name = "timeseries/healthins/sahie", vars = c("NAME", "AGE_DESC", "RACE_DESC", "SEX_DESC", "IPRCAT", "IPR_DESC", "PCTUI_PT", "PCTUI_LB90", "PCTUI_UB90", "PCTUI_MOE"), region = "county:*", regionin = "state:39", time = 2016)

This does not generate all RACE or AGE or SEX categories.

Instead, I get

table(sahie16$AGE_DESC) Under 65 years 528

table(sahie16$RACE_DESC) All Races 528

table(sahie16$SEX_DESC) Both Sexes 528

What am I doing wrong in asking for specific variables but all categories?

[aniruhil]

I figured it out: you have to specify AGECAT, RACECAT, SEXCAT with AGE_DESC, RACE_DESC, SEX_DESC in order for each group to be pulled. Just specifying the *_DESC variables defaults to whatever group is assigned a category value of 0.

Not sure why this would be preferred behavior over allowing one to specify just the more informative *_DESC variables (since they have labels).

[hrecht]

Glad you were able to figure it out! My understanding is that the CAT variables are the required category selectors and DESC only describes the category variables that were pulled. I believe you can use CAT without DESC to get a specific type, but not the reverse.