Date:         Thu, 19 Jun 2008 10:30:15 -0400
Reply-To:     Howard Alper <halper@HEALTH.NYC.GOV>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         Howard Alper <halper@HEALTH.NYC.GOV>
Subject:      Calculating means - with complication

Hi,

  I have medical cost data on children for some or all months of 2007.  A
simplified sample of the data is given below (month=1=January, etc.)  I
want to calculate the mean montly expense per child.  Normally, that would
be easy with PROC MEANS, but there is a complication: I want the mean only
over the six months with highest medical costs.  If the child has data for
more than six months, I want to calculate as above, but if the child has
less than six months of data I'd like to take the average of all the
monthly data for the child.  How might I do this?

  Thanks in advance,

  Howard Alper



data homedir.test;
input childid month cost;
datalines;
1 1 90
1 3 100
1 5 66
1 8 99
1 9 44
1 10 23
1 12 555
2 2 94
2 7 82
2 12 54
;
run;