Execute estimation workflow for surveys

This function executes a sequence of statistical estimations on Survey objects, applying functions from the R survey package with appropriate metadata. Automatically handles different survey types and periodicities.

Usage

workflow(svy, ..., estimation_type = "monthly", conf.level = 0.95)

Arguments

svy

A list of Survey objects, or a PoolSurvey. Even for a single survey, wrap it in list(): workflow(svy = list(my_survey), ...). Must contain properly configured sample design.

...

Calls to survey package functions (such as svymean, svytotal, svyratio, etc.) that will be executed sequentially

estimation_type

Type of estimation (default "monthly") that determines which weight to use. Options: "monthly", "quarterly", "annual", or vector with multiple types

conf.level

Confidence level for the interval (default 0.95). Passed to confint. Can also be set per-call inside the estimation function (e.g., svymean(~x, na.rm = TRUE, conf.level = 0.90)), which overrides the workflow() default for that estimation.

Value

data.table with results from all estimations, including columns:

• stat: Estimation call and variable name

• variable: Variable name (for filtering)

• value: Point estimate

• se: Standard error

• cv: Coefficient of variation (proportion)

• confint_lower: Lower bound of confidence interval

• confint_upper: Upper bound of confidence interval

• evaluate: CV quality label from evaluate_cv (e.g. "Excellent", "Good", "Use with caution")

For svyby estimations, grouping variables (e.g. region, sexo) appear as additional columns.

Details

The function automatically selects the appropriate sample design according to the specified estimation_type. For each Survey in the input list, it executes all functions specified in ... and combines the results.

Supported estimation types:

• "monthly": Monthly estimations

• "quarterly": Quarterly estimations

• "annual": Annual estimations

For PoolSurvey objects, it uses a specialized methodology that handles pooling of multiple surveys.

See also

svymean for population means svytotal for population totals svyratio for ratios svyby for domain estimations PoolSurvey for survey pooling

Other workflows: RecipeWorkflow-class, evaluate_cv(), print.RecipeWorkflow(), publish_workflow(), read_workflow(), reproduce_workflow(), save_workflow(), workflow_from_list(), workflow_table()

Examples

# Simple estimation
dt <- data.table::data.table(
  x = rnorm(100), g = sample(c("a", "b"), 100, TRUE),
  w = rep(1, 100)
)
svy <- Survey$new(
  data = dt, edition = "2023", type = "test",
  psu = NULL, engine = "data.table",
  weight = add_weight(annual = "w")
)
result <- workflow(
  svy = list(svy),
  survey::svymean(~x, na.rm = TRUE),
  estimation_type = "annual"
)

# Domain estimation with svyby
result_by <- workflow(
  svy = list(svy),
  survey::svyby(~x, ~g, survey::svymean, na.rm = TRUE),
  estimation_type = "annual"
)

# Custom confidence level (90%) for all estimations
result_90 <- workflow(
  svy = list(svy),
  survey::svymean(~x, na.rm = TRUE),
  estimation_type = "annual",
  conf.level = 0.90
)

# Per-call confidence level (overrides workflow default)
result_mixed <- workflow(
  svy = list(svy),
  survey::svymean(~x, na.rm = TRUE, conf.level = 0.80),
  estimation_type = "annual"
)