CPRDLINKUTIL: Stata module for inputting CPRD linkage-source datasets into Stata

The cprdlinkutil package is designed for use with the cprdutil package, which creates Stata datasets from text data files produced by the Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD). cprdlinkutil is a suite of utility programs for inputting linkage-source text data files produced by CPRD for linkage to one or more non-CPRD sources of data on the same patients, and creating equivalent Stata datasets in the memory. Possible linkage-data sources include the Hospital Episodes System (HES) for data on hospitalisations, and the Office of National Statistics (ONS) for data on deaths. CPRD can carry out data retrievals to provide linkage datasets, with data about patients known to CPRD, and with one observation per event of the type recorded by the linkage-data source. Datasets produced by cprdlinkutil contain information on patients and practices known to CPRD, and on the times at which patients in these practices can be said to be at risk of experiencing recorded events of the types recorded by each linkage-data source. cprdlinkutil uses the SSC packages keyby and lablist, which need to be installed for cprdlinkutil to work.