Administrative datasets containing client identifying information (names, birthdates, SSNs) are often used for a variety of research and evaluation projects. The projects often require the linking of two or more independently maintained client rosters in order to track service utilization across different systems. Unfortunately, a given client may be represented with slightly different identifying information both within and across administrative datasets. Discrepancies arise from a variety of reasons including:
- Use of nicknames
- Hyphenated names
- Misspelled names
- Transposed SSN digits
- Transposed date fields
Failure to identify and appropriately deal with this problem may lead to incomplete linking of client records and, ultimately, introduce unnecessary error into the research or evaluation project.
This paper introduces The Link King - a SAS/AF application for use in the linkage and unduplication of administrative datasets. The Link King features a data importing and formatting wizard, artificial intelligence to insure appropriate linking protocols are used, a powerful interface for manual review of "uncertain" linkages, an ability to generate random samples of links for validation, and easy "point-and-click" editing of the final roster of consolidated records.
Visit www.the-link-king.com for more information about this public domain software or to download The Link King.
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