assuming if age < 20 ageband=1, else if age < 40 ageband=2, else if age < 60 ageband=3, sort of thing.

Then ageband is ordinal. ie order matters, as opposed to nominal (1=male, 2=female, order is meaningless).

I've done this several times and seen it done as well . . ie maybe being older (70+ ) might have an effect on health, but the specific age doesn't really matter. THe most recent paper that comes to mind had 4 categories for age (all adult).

Not sure how to answer the clustering question though. HTH Venita

-----Original Message----- From: Andrew Bolton To: SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Sent: 9/2/2004 9:11 AM Subject: ot: stats question

Getting a whiles since I did stats at school so apologies if this is an obvious question.

How would I classify the data type 'age-band', i.e. it's not continous but seem to remeber it's not categorical (is is 'meristic'?). I'm wondering the best way to handle age-band in clustering, and whether if would be valid to use a single variable which is coded up as 0,1,2,3 etc for progressivley older bands (i.e. an implied order)?

Any help/links much appreciated.

Cheers,

Andy