Good Ways to Visualize Longitudinal Categorical Data in R

Question

[Update: Although I\'ve accepted an answer, please add another answer if you have additional visualization ideas (whether in R or another language/program). Tex

Answer 1

I wish I had found @bdemarest's answer before I wrote an R package to solve this problem, but since the OP requested additional updates, I'll share one more solution. What bdemarest suggested in Figure 4 is what I have been calling a type of horizontal line plot.

In developing the longCatEDA R package, we found that sorting the data was crucial to making useful plots (see example(sorter) and the report linked in the comment below for technical details), especially as the size of the problem became large. For example, we started the problem with daily drinking data (abstinent, use, abuse) for several thousand participants over 3 years (>1000 days).

The code to apply the horizontal line plot to @eipi10's data is below. Figure 1 stratifies by term, and Figure 2 stratifies by first status as with Figure 4 of @bdemarest, though the results are not identical due to within strata sorting.

Figure 1

Figure 2

# libraries
install.packages('longCatEDA')
library(longCatEDA)
library(RColorBrewer)

# transform data long to wide
dfw <- reshape(df1,
           timevar = 'term',
           idvar = c('id', 'cohort'),
           direction = 'wide')

# set up objects required by longCat()
y <- dfw[,seq(3,15,by=2)]
Labels <- levels(df1$standing)
tLabels <- levels(df1$term)
groupLabels <- levels(dfw$cohort)

# use the same colors as bdemarest
cols <- brewer.pal(7, "Set1")

# plot the longCat object
png('plot1.png', width=10, height=6.25, units='in', res=100)
par(bg='cornsilk3', mar=c(5.1, 4.1, 4.1, 8.1), xpd=TRUE)
lc <- longCat(y=y, Labels=Labels, tLabels=tLabels, id=dfw$id) 
longCatPlot(lc, cols=cols, xlab='Term', lwd=8, legendBuffer=0)
legend(8.1, 25, legend=Labels, col=cols, lty=1, lwd=4)
dev.off()

# stratify by term
png('plot2.png', width=10, height=6.25, units='in', res=100)
par(bg='cornsilk3', mar=c(5.1, 4.1, 4.1, 8.1), xpd=TRUE)
lc.g <- sorter(lc, group=dfw$cohort, groupLabels=groupLabels)
longCatPlot(lc.g, cols=cols, xlab='Term', lwd=8, legendBuffer=0) 
legend(8.1, 25, legend=Labels, col=cols, lty=1, lwd=4)
dev.off()

# stratify by first status, akin to Figure 4 by bdemarest
png('plot2.png', width=10, height=6.25, units='in', res=100)
par(bg='cornsilk3', mar=c(5.1, 4.1, 4.1, 8.1), xpd=TRUE)
first <- apply(!is.na(y), 1, function(x) which(x)[1])
first <- y[cbind(seq_along(first), first)]
lc.1 <- sorter(lc, group=factor(first), groupLabels = sort(unique(first)))
longCatPlot(lc.1, cols=cols, xlab='Term', lwd=8, legendBuffer=0) 
legend(8.1, 25, legend=Labels, col=cols, lty=1, lwd=4)
dev.off()