Exclusion codes

2026-11-08

Coming from growthcleanr 2.x? Exclusion codes changed in version 3; for the mapping from 2.x codes, see “Mapping from prior exclusion codes” in vignette("experienced-start-here"). For a plain-language list of the Summary codes, see “The Summary exclusion codes” in the same vignette.

Why did exclusion codes change? The primary goal was to make the exclusion codes more relevant to users, who typically want to know why a value was excluded, rather than that it was excluded in what used to be called step EWMA-9. There are summary codes relevant to most users, and detailed codes that provide more detail. We previously had separate codes for children and adults. In the summary codes, we consolidated the child and adult codes (where appropriate) because it is straightforward to stratify by age if desired and more burdensome to consolidate separate child and adult codes for users who want to report them combined.

Purpose. This file is the canonical catalog of every value cleangrowth() can place in the exclude (Summary) and exclude_detailed (Detailed) output columns.

Code truth. The authoritative enumeration in code is in R/child_clean.R: the two crosswalk vectors exclude.map.summary / exclude.map.detailed and the factor-level vectors exclude.levels.summary / exclude.levels.detailed. The algorithm continues to emit its original internal step literals (exclude.levels.peds + exclude.levels.adult); a mapping layer at the end of output assembly translates those internal codes into the Summary and Detailed codes below. Any Summary/Detailed code that is not a level in the corresponding exclude.levels.* vector becomes a silent NA in the factor output, so this catalog and those vectors must stay identical.

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Output levels

growthcleanr reports each value at one of multiple verbosity levels:

• Summary (default) — the value in the exclude column. Consolidated across steps and across the child/adult algorithms; the smallest useful reason set for the typical user. 14 codes.
• Detailed (opt-in via exclude_detail = TRUE or full_detail = TRUE) — adds an exclude_detailed column. Step-level; keeps the child (-C-) / adult (-A-) algorithm prefix; folds away the repeated-value (RV / firstRV / allRV), -All, and round-iteration distinctions. Every Detailed code maps to exactly one Summary code.
• Internal (not returned) — the per-step literals the algorithm assigns while cleaning (including RV passes, -All variants, round iteration); output maps them to Detailed/Summary codes.

Surfacing. Follows the existing cf_detail / corr_detail / full_detail convention: exclude always carries Summary; exclude_detailed is added only when requested, so both views are available without re-running.

Summary factor order (as set in exclude.levels.summary): Include, then shared codes, then exclusions in approximate algorithm-step order — Include → Exclude-Not-GC-Param, Exclude-Missing-Info, Exclude-HC-Out-of-Range, Exclude-Identical, Exclude-Extraneous → Exclude-Hard-Limit, Exclude-CF, Exclude-Scale-Max, Exclude-Extreme, Exclude-Pattern, Exclude-Pair, Exclude-Single, Exclude-Traj-Uneval.

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Shared / “for all” codes (level-independent — identical at every level)

These do not vary by level and carry no -C-/-A- prefix.

Code	Algorithm	Step	When
Include	both	—	Value passes all checks (binary bin_exclude = Include).
Exclude-Not-GC-Param	both	preprocessing	param is present but not one gc handles. The row is set aside at entry with its measurement preserved and rebound at the end (see Notes on current behavior).
Exclude-Missing-Info	both	preprocessing	Missing or unevaluable required field: NA/NaN measurement, measurement < 0, measurement == 0, agedays < 0, NA agedays after the child/adult split, missing param, or (pediatric rows only) an unusable value in the sex column.
Exclude-HC-Out-of-Range	child + adult	preprocessing (child); after cleanadult() returns (adult)	HC with agedays >= 1827 (5 y; WHO HC z-score reference ends at 5 y), including every HC row at or above adult_cutpoint (the adult algorithm cleans height and weight only).
Exclude-Identical	both	child 13 / adult 9H, 10W	Identical to the included value for the same SPA (same-day duplicate, kept-one loser).
Exclude-Extraneous	both	child 13 / adult 9H, 10W	Non-selected, non-identical same-day extraneous value.

In growthcleanr 2.2.3, the output code for missing values (now Exclude-Missing-Info) was Missing. The internal literals Exclude-Missing and Exclude-Not-Cleaned are reported as Exclude-Missing-Info and Exclude-HC-Out-of-Range.

Temporary (never returned): Exclude-C-Temp-Same-Day is an internal child Step 5 flag and must be resolved before output at every level (it maps to Exclude-Extraneous if it ever reached output).

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Child crosswalk (Detailed → Summary)

Detailed child codes keep the -C- prefix. Not param-specific (the param column carries the parameter).

Summary code	Child Step(s)	Detailed code(s) folded in	Reason
Exclude-CF	6	Exclude-C-CF	Deemed likely carried forward from the prior value.
Exclude-Hard-Limit	7	Exclude-C-Hard-Limit	Population implausible value (outside population hard limits). Internal literal Exclude-C-PIV.
Exclude-Extreme	9, 11	Exclude-C-Evil-Twins (9), Exclude-C-Traj-Extreme (11)	Extreme outlier: adjacent extreme value pair/group (Step 9), or extreme trajectory deviation / EWMA1 (Step 11).
Exclude-Pattern	15, 16, 17	Exclude-C-Traj (15/16), Exclude-C-Abs-Diff (17)	Moderate trajectory outlier (EWMA2; middle, first, last, birth WT, birth HT/HC, all sub-variants) or height/HC velocity (abs-diff) violation.
Exclude-Pair	19	Exclude-C-Pair	Subject with 2 included measurements at Step 19, one excluded.
Exclude-Single	19	Exclude-C-Single	Subject with only one unexcluded measurement at Step 19, excluded.
Exclude-Traj-Uneval	21	Exclude-C-Unevaluable-Trajectory	Unevaluable trajectory: so many values meet error criteria the subject is deemed unevaluable.

(Shared Exclude-Identical / Exclude-Extraneous from child Step 13 are listed in the shared table above; the detailed level uses the same names, not -C--prefixed.)

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Adult crosswalk (Detailed → Summary)

Detailed adult codes keep the -A- prefix. Adult step suffix H/W indicates HT/WT scope. Adult has no Exclude-Pair — the adult 2-distinct-value pair/window checks are trajectory-disagreement and fold into Exclude-Pattern (this avoids colliding with the child “sparse 2-measurement subject” meaning of Exclude-Pair).

Summary code	Adult Step(s)	Detailed code(s) folded in	Reason
Exclude-Hard-Limit	1H/1W	Exclude-A-Hard-Limit	Population implausible value (outside population hard limits). Internal literal Exclude-A-PIV.
Exclude-Scale-Max	4W	Exclude-A-Scale-Max (+ internal Scale-Max-Identical, Scale-Max-RV-Propagated)	Weight at the designated scale maximum (all scale-max variants fold here).
Exclude-Extreme	9Wa, 9Wb	Exclude-A-Evil-Twins (9Wa), Exclude-A-Traj-Extreme (9Wb)	Extreme outlier: adjacent extreme weight pair (9Wa) or extreme EWMA weight outlier (9Wb).
Exclude-Pattern	10Ha, 10Hb, 11Wa, 11Wa2, 11Wb	Exclude-A-Ord-Pair (10Ha), Exclude-A-Window (10Hb), Exclude-A-2D-Ordered (11Wa), Exclude-A-2D-Non-Ordered (11Wa2), Exclude-A-Traj-Moderate + Exclude-A-Traj-Moderate-Error-Load (11Wb)	Trajectory/pattern disagreement: 2-distinct HT pair outside band, 3+-distinct HT window, 2D ordered/non-ordered WT pair, or moderate EWMA WT outlier (incl. error-load escalation).
Exclude-Single	13	Exclude-A-Single	Subject with only one distinct unexcluded value at Step 13, excluded.
Exclude-Traj-Uneval	14	Exclude-A-Unevaluable-Trajectory	Unevaluable trajectory: error ratio exceeds threshold.

Detailed level retains Exclude-A-Traj-Moderate-Error-Load as a distinct code (the -Error-Load escalation inside 11Wb); the -RV copy folds into it. All other RV/firstRV/allRV/-All/-RV-Propagated passes fold into their base Detailed code.

Internal-level codes that fold up: adult firstRV / allRV / -RV-Propagated passes of the Traj-Extreme and Traj-Moderate families, -All variants (Ord-Pair-All, Window-All), the within-trajectory -Error-Load-RV escalation (→ Exclude-Pattern), and Exclude-A-Scale-Max-RV-Propagated (→ Exclude-Scale-Max).

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Notes on current behavior

• Exclude-Not-GC-Param. Rows whose param is not one growthcleanr cleans are set aside at entry with their original measurement preserved, given the internal code Exclude-Not-GC-Param, and rebound at output (rather than being converted to a missing value).
• measurement < 0 → Exclude-Missing-Info, alongside measurement == 0 and NA/NaN (both child and adult paths). On pediatric rows, a blank/NA or unrecognized value in the sex column resolves to Exclude-Missing-Info as well (via a missing z-score in preprocessing); the adult algorithm does not require a valid value in the sex column (when available, it is used in the Evil Twins step and in calculating whether a value falls in the unit error range).
• Population implausible value. Output codes are Summary Exclude-Hard-Limit and Detailed Exclude-C-Hard-Limit / Exclude-A-Hard-Limit. The internal step literals remain Exclude-C-PIV / Exclude-A-PIV (PIV = population implausible value, formerly BIV, “biologically implausible”); the output-mapping layer renames them to Hard-Limit. The name reflects that implausibility here is judged solely against population reference limits — which, especially at tighter adult permissiveness levels, can exclude biologically plausible values — not against the patient’s own trajectory. (Exclude-Single is also population-limit-based, but uses different limits/methods than the PIV step.)
• Adult Scale-Max: all scale-max variants (Exclude-A-Scale-Max, Exclude-A-Scale-Max-Identical, Exclude-A-Scale-Max-RV-Propagated) fold to Exclude-Scale-Max.