OK, two steps to this – first is to write a function that does the translation you want – I’ve put an example together based on your pseudo-code:
def label_race (row):
if row['eri_hispanic'] == 1 :
return 'Hispanic'
if row['eri_afr_amer'] + row['eri_asian'] + row['eri_hawaiian'] + row['eri_nat_amer'] + row['eri_white'] > 1 :
return 'Two Or More'
if row['eri_nat_amer'] == 1 :
return 'A/I AK Native'
if row['eri_asian'] == 1:
return 'Asian'
if row['eri_afr_amer'] == 1:
return 'Black/AA'
if row['eri_hawaiian'] == 1:
return 'Haw/Pac Isl.'
if row['eri_white'] == 1:
return 'White'
return 'Other'
You may want to go over this, but it seems to do the trick – notice that the parameter going into the function is considered to be a Series object labelled “row”.
Next, use the apply function in pandas to apply the function – e.g.
df.apply (lambda row: label_race(row), axis=1)
Note the axis=1 specifier, that means that the application is done at a row, rather than a column level. The results are here:
0 White
1 Hispanic
2 White
3 White
4 Other
5 White
6 Two Or More
7 White
8 Haw/Pac Isl.
9 White
If you’re happy with those results, then run it again, saving the results into a new column in your original dataframe.
df['race_label'] = df.apply (lambda row: label_race(row), axis=1)
The resultant dataframe looks like this (scroll to the right to see the new column):
lname fname rno_cd eri_afr_amer eri_asian eri_hawaiian eri_hispanic eri_nat_amer eri_white rno_defined race_label
0 MOST JEFF E 0 0 0 0 0 1 White White
1 CRUISE TOM E 0 0 0 1 0 0 White Hispanic
2 DEPP JOHNNY NaN 0 0 0 0 0 1 Unknown White
3 DICAP LEO NaN 0 0 0 0 0 1 Unknown White
4 BRANDO MARLON E 0 0 0 0 0 0 White Other
5 HANKS TOM NaN 0 0 0 0 0 1 Unknown White
6 DENIRO ROBERT E 0 1 0 0 0 1 White Two Or More
7 PACINO AL E 0 0 0 0 0 1 White White
8 WILLIAMS ROBIN E 0 0 1 0 0 0 White Haw/Pac Isl.
9 EASTWOOD CLINT E 0 0 0 0 0 1 White White