How to revalue certain data points in R?

Question

I am trying to revalue the data points for one of the variables in the dataset I am working with.

The variable assigns race. Instead of listing out the race as the data point, it is a number. I am trying the revalue the number so that it states the corresponding race.

library(plyr)
as.character(data$MRACEHISP)
nat2015p01_new2020$mothersrace <- revalue(data$MRACEHISP, c("1"="WHITE", "2" = "BLACK", "3" = "AIAN", "4"="ASIAN", "5" = "NHOPI", "6" = "MULTIPLE", "7" = "HISPANICE", "8" = "OTHER" ))

I keep getting the following error: Error in revalue(nat2015p01_new2020$MRACEHISP, c( 1 = "WHITE", 2 = "BLACK", : x is not a factor or a character vector.

I am unsure how to solve this error and go about the problem. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

Answer 1

You need to store the character values in data

library(plyr)
data$MRACEHISP <- as.character(data$MRACEHISP)
nat2015p01_new2020$mothersrace <- revalue(data$MRACEHISP, c("1"="WHITE", "2" = "BLACK", "3" = "AIAN", "4"="ASIAN", "5" = "NHOPI", "6" = "MULTIPLE", "7" = "HISPANICE", "8" = "OTHER" ))