pandas create new column based on values from other columns / apply a function of multiple columns, row-wise

Question

I want to apply my custom function (it uses an if-else ladder) to these six columns (ERI_Hispanic, ERI_AmerInd_AKNatv, ERI_Asian,

Answer 1

.apply() takes in a function as the first parameter; pass in the label_race function as so:

df['race_label'] = df.apply(label_race, axis=1)

You don't need to make a lambda function to pass in a function.