Test Data For PAMCOMP

(applies to version 1.41 or higher)

1. Introduction

These test data should let you test the correct installation of the PAMCOMP software and serves as an example how to compute person-years and standardized mortality ratios. In case of problems please contact taegerd@uni-muenster.de.or visit the PAMCOMP homepage at http://medweb.uni-muenster.de/institute/epi/pamcomp/pamcomp.html.

2. Creating a new PAMCOMP file

After installation of the software start PAMCOMP. Now you must first create a new PAMCOMP file which will hold all necessary tables and information to compute person-years and SMRs. Goto FILE|NEW and create a new PAMCOMP file, f.i. pamtest.pam.

3. Importing the cohort data

The next task is to import the cohort data. You will find attached with this manual test cohort data as an ASCII file named cohort.txt. You can open it with notepad and will see following

There are 6 variables separated by a semicolon

To import these data go to TABLES|MAIN TABLE|ADD|ASCII

A dialog window will appear where you can select the cohort.txt file. Afterwards following ASCII import window will appear.

Select COLUMNS HEADERS IN FIRST ROW and the data type LONG for the variables ID and ICD . For the other variables choose the DATE data type and as date format DDMMYYYY (to select variables click on the column headers). For the variable DOH it should look like

Now click on IMPORT and the cohort data will be included into the pamtest.pam file.

4. Calculating person years

To calculate the person years go to CALCULATE|PERSON YEARS. You must fill in the same as in the figure below.

Now click on COMPUTE and the person years will be calculated with following result

There will be 8 age classes [10-14], [15-19], [20-24], [25-29], [30-34], [35-39], [40-44], [45-49]  and 6 calendar classes [1975-1979],[1980-1984],[1985-1989],[1990-1994],[1995-1999],[2000-2004].

4. Importing reference data

The next task is to import the reference data. Because your person-years matrix is of dimension  8 x 6 (age classes x calendar classes) your matrix of rates must be of the same type. If for instance in your reference population there were 456 people in the age class [10-14] in calendar class [1975-1979] and also 5 deaths, your rate for this matrix cell will  be 5/456=0.010965.

You will find attached with this manual two test reference data sets as ASCII files. The first is named rates_eng.txt for PC operating systems with the dot as decimal operator and the second is named rates_deu.txt for PC operating systems with the comma as decimal operator. Choose that  what will represent the decimal separator of your operating system,

You can open f.i. rates_eng.txt with notepad and will see following

There are 8 rows representing the age classes and 6 columns representing the calendar classes. The value for the cell in the upper left is 5/456=0,010965.

To import these data go to TABLES|RATE TABLE|ADD|ASCII and import each column as DOUBLE format data. Afterwards you will see the rate file as

5. Calculating Standardized Mortality Ratios

After person-years computation and importing of reference data you can compute SMRs. To do go to COMPUTE|SMR. Following dialog will appear

Choose as

Rate file: rates_deu (or rates_eng)

Person Years table: age*calendar

ICD variable: icd

ICD value: 1

Method: Byar

Significance level: 0.05

so that is looks like

Press COMPUTE and the SMR as well as the death distribution will be calculated.

The death distribution in this case looks like

and the SMR

If these are the correct figures the PAMCOMP software is installed properly. If you get different numbers for the SMR and the confidence bounds, check if your Null Value for the SMR is 100. If not you can change it via the menu TOOLS|OPTIONS.

(c) 2001-2002 Dirk Taeger

v1.01 of this file

All samples are hypothetical data