I'd like advice on double vs. float precision on some data values obtained via import of a dbf file.

In the file of interest, the observation units are U.S. census tracts, with latitude and longitude among the variables that matter to me. I noticed that:

1) Stata imported latitude/longitude as floats, not doubles, which could matter in some applications.
2) -import dbf- does not have any type options
3) MS Excel gets different values for these variables than does Stata, with absolute differences around 1e-6

I'm guessing (?) that Excel imported the dbf file at double precision?

For example:

Code:
Lat (Excel) Lat(Stata) abs diff
32.4770395818 32.4770393372 2.4464E-07
32.4742513120 32.4742507935 5.1854E-07
32.4754284379 32.4754295349 1.09701E-06
32.4719824405 32.4719810486 1.39192E-06
32.4586597838 32.4586601257 3.4193E-07
The differences likely don't matter in my current application, but if I did need double precision lat/long, what should be done?
All I can think of here is -odbc- (I don't see anything about a double option in -odbc-.) I'd hate to have to import multiple dbfs into Excel and then -import excel-.