Comparison of Selected Statistical Software Packages for Variance Estimation in the Community Tracking Study Surveys

Addresses the suitability of some commonly used statistical software packages for analyzing the Community Tracking Study surveys of households and physicians, to help data users make informed choices about the software they use. Because of the complexity of the CTS survey designs, SUDAAN is the recommended software package to compute sampling variances. Since some users have expressed interest in using other software (which cannot always fully account for the major design features of the CTS designs), the report provides guidance on the usage, capabilities and limitations of these survey data analysis software packages relative to SUDAAN.