CDC – BRFSS 2008 Survey Data and Documentation

2008 Survey Data Information

2008 BRFSS Overview [PDF – 58 KB]
Provides information on the background, design, data collection and processing, statistical, and analytical issues for the combined landline and cell phone data set.

2008 Codebook [PDF – 2 MB]
Codebook for the file showing variable name, location, and frequency of values for all reporting areas combined for the combined landline and cell phone data set.

Calculated Variables [PDF – 195 KB]

2008 Summary Data Quality Report [PDF – 786 KB]

Comparability of Data [PDF – 57 KB]
Comparability of data across reporting areas.

BRFSS Modules Used by State
BRFSS Modules Used by Category
Arranged by state or by category for the combined landline and cell phone data set.

Summary Matrix of Calculated Variables (CV) in the 2008 Data File

Data Files

There are 414,509 records for 2008. More information on participation is available in the States Conducting Surveillance by Year table. The data files are provided in ASCII and SAS Transport formats.

2008 BRFSS Data (ASCII) [ZIP – 45 MB]
Data updated May 16, 2011
This file is in ASCII format. It has a fixed record length of 1294 positions. The May 19, 2009 update added a variable that was inadvertently excluded from the original release of the ASCII data file. The .XPT file was not affected by this update. The May 16, 2011 update corrected the DRNKWIN1 variable in data from Wyoming and Maine.

Variable Layout
Format information on variable name by column position.

2008 BRFSS Data (SAS Transport Format) [ZIP – 81 MB]
Data updated May 16, 2011
This file was exported from SAS V8.2 in the XPT transport format. This file contains 292 variables. This format can be imported into SPSS or STATA. Please note: some of the variable labels get truncated in the process of converting to the XPT format so they may be slightly different from what is on the SASOUT08.SAS program. The May 16, 2011 update corrected the DRNKWIN1 variable in data from Wyoming and Maine.

2008 BRFSS Multiple Questionnaires
The multiple questionnaire data sets contain the data from the states which conducted dual questionnaires and used optional modules in 2008.

SAS Resources

The following files are included for use with SAS software developed by SAS Institute, Inc. The SAS files are programs that can be read using any text editor. Save SAS files as plain text files.

Format08.sas [SAS – 118 KB]
SAS for Windows program used to generate the 2008 format library.

formats08 [SAS7BCAT – 652 KB]
Format library used with the 2008 BRFSS SAS Data File.

SASOUT08.SAS [SAS – 30 KB]
SAS for Windows program to convert the ASCII file into a SAS dataset.

transprt.sas [SAS – 3 KB]
SAS for Windows program to convert the XPT (SAS Transport) file into a SAS dataset.

Formas08.sas [SAS – 9 KB]
SAS for Windows format assignment statements.