get_age_group function

Construct age-group variable from age column

This method splits an age interval from min_val to max_val

into intervals of size step. If the method finds ages greater or equal than max_val

it assigns the string ">max_val". By default min_val is set to 0, however it can be assigned by convenience. If the method finds ages lower or equal than min_val it assigns the string "<min_val-1". The function warns when (max_val - min_val) is not an integer multiple of step. In that case the last interval is truncated to the upper value closest to max_val for which (closest_upper - min_val) is multiple of step.

get_age_group(data_set, col_age, max_val, min_val = 0, step)

Arguments

• data_set: data.frame with at least a column containing the age information
• col_age: Name of the column containing the age information
• max_val: Maximum value of age interval to split
• min_val: Minimum value of age interval to split
• step: Step used to split the age interval

Returns

Column of type factor with the same length as the number of rows in data_set, with levels corresponding to age bins between min_val and max_val. Ages above max_val are represented as >max_val.

Examples

# load data provided with the package
data(cohortdata)

# assign age groups as a column of the `data.frame`
cohortdata$age_group <- get_age_group(
  data_set = cohortdata,
  col_age = "age",
  max_val = 80,
  step = 10
)

# view the `data.frame` with new column
head(cohortdata)