Understanding Society User Support

Dear USoc team,

I have a question with drinking variables in wave 2, adult self-completion. The variable value labelling seems odd to me.

I expect the variable b_sceverdrnk, ever had an alcoholic drink, to have values as "never had drink" or "had drink before". However, it is how the variable is labelled:

. labelbook  b_sceverdrnk

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
value label b_sceverdrnk 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

      values                                    labels
       range:  [-9,2]                    string length:  [5,28]
           N:  7                 unique at full length:  yes
        gaps:  yes                 unique at length 12:  yes
  missing .*:  0                           null string:  no
                               leading/trailing blanks:  no
                                    numeric -> numeric:  no
  definition
          -9   missing
          -8   inapplicable
          -7   proxy
          -2   refused
          -1   don't know
           1   age provided
           2   never had an alcoholic drink

   variables:  b_sceverdrnk

I ran a cross-tabulation between b_sceverdrnk and b_scfalcdrnk, how often have you had an alcoholic drink. The results also seem odd. I expect that the inapplicable in b_scfalcdrnk could be partially explained by "never had drink" in b_sceverdrnk. But it is not the case.

 tab b_sceverdrnk b_scfalcdrnk, m

ever had an alcoholic |                                      how often have you had an alcoholic drink during the last 12 months?
               drink  |   missing  inapplica      proxy  don't kno  almost ev  five or s  three or   once or t  once or t  once ever  once or t  not at al  not in la |     Total
----------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------
              missing |         8          0          0        217      3,118      2,116      5,673     11,822      6,635      3,975      3,782      1,404      2,804 |    41,554 
         inapplicable |         0      6,582          0          0          0          0          0          0          0          0          0          0          0 |     6,582 
                proxy |         0          0      3,882          0          0          0          0          0          0          0          0          0          0 |     3,882 
           don't know |       392          0          0          0          0          0          0          0          0          0          0          0          0 |       392 
         age provided |     2,186          0          0          0          0          0          0          0          0          0          0          1          0 |     2,187 
----------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------
                Total |     2,586      6,582      3,882        217      3,118      2,116      5,673     11,822      6,635      3,975      3,782      1,405      2,804 |    54,597 

I understand that the same issue was raised one year ago, https://www.understandingsociety.ac.uk/support/issues/511

But I do not think it has been fixed yet.

Could you please let me know what I can do to get correct records of whether the respondent has ever had alcoholic drink?

Many thanks.

Regards,
Min