Previous Page | Next Page

The SURVEYSELECT Procedure

Example 87.2 PPS Selection of Two Units per Stratum

This example describes hospital selection for a survey by using PROC SURVEYSELECT. A state health agency plans to conduct a statewide survey of a variety of different hospital services. The agency plans to select a probability sample of individual discharge records within hospitals by using a two-stage sample design. First-stage units are hospitals, and second-stage units are patient discharges during the study period. Hospitals are stratified first according to geographic region and then by rural/urban type and size of hospital. Two hospitals are selected from each stratum with probability proportional to size.

The data set HospitalFrame contains all hospitals in the first geographical region of the state:

   data HospitalFrame;
      input Hospital$ Type$ SizeMeasure @@;
      if (SizeMeasure < 20) then Size='Small ';
         else if (SizeMeasure < 50) then Size='Medium';
         else Size='Large ';   
      datalines;
   034 Rural  0.870   107 Rural  1.316
   079 Rural  2.127   223 Rural  3.960
   236 Rural  5.279   165 Rural  5.893
   086 Rural  0.501   141 Rural 11.528
   042 Urban  3.104   124 Urban  4.033
   006 Urban  4.249   261 Urban  4.376
   195 Urban  5.024   190 Urban 10.373 
   038 Urban 17.125   083 Urban 40.382
   259 Urban 44.942   129 Urban 46.702
   133 Urban 46.992   218 Urban 48.231
   026 Urban 61.460   058 Urban 65.931
   119 Urban 66.352
   ;

In the SAS data set HospitalFrame, the variable Hospital identifies the hospital. The variable Type equals 'Urban' if the hospital is located in an urban area, and 'Rural' otherwise. The variable SizeMeasure contains the hospital’s size measure, which is constructed from past data on service utilization for the hospital together with the desired sampling rates for each service. This size measure reflects the amount of relevant survey information expected from the hospital. See Drummond et al. (1982) for details about this type of size measure. The variable Size equals 'Small', 'Medium', or 'Large', depending on the value of the hospital’s size measure.

The following PROC PRINT statements display the data set Hospital Frame and produce Output 87.2.1:

   title1 'Hospital Utilization Survey';
   title2 'Sampling Frame, Region 1';
   proc print data=HospitalFrame;
   run;

Output 87.2.1 Sampling Frame
Hospital Utilization Survey
Sampling Frame, Region 1

Obs Hospital Type SizeMeasure Size
1 034 Rural 0.870 Small
2 107 Rural 1.316 Small
3 079 Rural 2.127 Small
4 223 Rural 3.960 Small
5 236 Rural 5.279 Small
6 165 Rural 5.893 Small
7 086 Rural 0.501 Small
8 141 Rural 11.528 Small
9 042 Urban 3.104 Small
10 124 Urban 4.033 Small
11 006 Urban 4.249 Small
12 261 Urban 4.376 Small
13 195 Urban 5.024 Small
14 190 Urban 10.373 Small
15 038 Urban 17.125 Small
16 083 Urban 40.382 Medium
17 259 Urban 44.942 Medium
18 129 Urban 46.702 Medium
19 133 Urban 46.992 Medium
20 218 Urban 48.231 Medium
21 026 Urban 61.460 Large
22 058 Urban 65.931 Large
23 119 Urban 66.352 Large

The following PROC SURVEYSELECT statements select a probability sample of hospitals from the HospitalFrame data set by using a stratified design with PPS selection of two units from each stratum:

   title1 'Hospital Utilization Survey';
   title2 'Stratified PPS Sampling';
   proc surveyselect data=HospitalFrame
         method=pps_brewer
         seed=48702 out=SampleHospitals;
      size SizeMeasure;
      strata Type Size notsorted;
   run;

The STRATA statement names the stratification variables Type and Size. The NOTSORTED option specifies that observations with the same STRATA variable values are grouped together but are not necessarily sorted in alphabetical or increasing numerical order. In the HospitalFrame data set, Size = 'Small' precedes Size = 'Medium'.

In the PROC SURVEYSELECT statement, the METHOD=PPS_BREWER option requests sample selection by Brewer’s method, which selects two units per stratum with probability proportional to size. The SEED=48702 option specifies '48702' as the initial seed for random number generation. The SIZE statement names SizeMeasure as the size measure variable. It is not necessary to specify the sample size with the N= option, because Brewer’s method always selects two units from each stratum.

Output 87.2.2 displays the output from PROC SURVEYSELECT. A total of eight hospitals were selected from the four strata. The data set SampleHospitals contains the selected hospitals.

Output 87.2.2 Sample Selection Summary
Hospital Utilization Survey
Stratified PPS Sampling

The SURVEYSELECT Procedure

Selection Method Brewer's PPS Method
Size Measure SizeMeasure
Strata Variables Type
  Size

Input Data Set HOSPITALFRAME
Random Number Seed 48702
Stratum Sample Size 2
Number of Strata 4
Total Sample Size 8
Output Data Set SAMPLEHOSPITALS

The following PROC PRINT statements display the sample hospitals and produce Output 87.2.3:

   title1 'Hospital Utilization Survey';
   title2 'Sample Selected by Stratified PPS Design';
   proc print data=SampleHospitals;
   run;

Output 87.2.3 Sample Hospitals
Hospital Utilization Survey
Sample Selected by Stratified PPS Design

Obs Type Size Hospital SizeMeasure SelectionProb SamplingWeight JtSelectionProb
1 Rural Small 079 2.127 0.13516 7.39868 0.01851
2 Rural Small 236 5.279 0.33545 2.98106 0.01851
3 Urban Small 006 4.249 0.17600 5.68181 0.01454
4 Urban Small 195 5.024 0.20810 4.80533 0.01454
5 Urban Medium 133 46.992 0.41357 2.41795 0.11305
6 Urban Medium 218 48.231 0.42448 2.35584 0.11305
7 Urban Large 026 61.460 0.63445 1.57617 0.31505
8 Urban Large 058 65.931 0.68060 1.46929 0.31505


The variable SelectionProb contains the selection probability for each hospital in the sample. The variable JtSelectionProb contains the joint probability of selection for the two sample hospitals in the same stratum. The variable SamplingWeight contains the sampling weight component for this first stage of the design. The final-stage weight components, which correspond to patient record selection within hospitals, can be multiplied by the hospital weight components to obtain the overall sampling weights.

Previous Page | Next Page | Top of Page