Couple Attitudes and Agreement Regarding Pregnancy Wantedness in the Philippines

We compare husbands' and wives' views of the wantedness of their most recent pregnancy in the Philippines, a country where relatively high levels of unintended fertility persist. This research is an extension of earlier work that looked separately at individual men's and women's responses. We analyze survey data for 369 couples and find that those most at risk of experiencing a pregnancy that neither spouse wanted tended to be higher parity couples, those who were more fatalistic, those who were practicing Catholics who attended religious services frequently, and those among whom the husband was the sole breadwinner. Higher parity women and older women were also more apt to experience a pregnancy that was wanted by only 1 spouse. Women who had difficulty discussing sexual matters with their husbands were more likely than other women to have a pregnancy that their husbands wanted but they did not.     

The vegetarian option: varieties, conversions, motives and careers

This paper reports the findings of a qualitative study of the dietary beliefs and practices of a ‘snowball sample’ of seventy-six vegetarians and vegans. The dynamics of the process of conversion are examined, along with respondents'accounts of their motives and of the impact of their dietary stance upon their relationships with kin, friends and colleagues. The study's findings, which appear to indicate the central importance of ethical considerations for this particular response group, are set in the context of broader debates concerning the sociological dimensions of the selection or avoidance of specific food items.     

An Ecological Model for Quantitative Risk Assessment for Schistosomiasis: The Case of a Patchy Environment in the Coastal Tropical Area of Northeastern Brazil

We developed a stochastic model for quantitative risk assessment for the Schistosoma mansoni (SM) parasite, which causes an endemic disease of public concern. The model provides answers in a useful format for public health decisions, uses data and expert opinion, and can be applied to any landscape where the snail Biomphalaria glabrata is the main intermediate host (South and Central America, the Caribbean, and Africa). It incorporates several realistic and case‐specific features: stage‐structured parasite populations, periodic praziquantel (PZQ) drug treatment for humans, density dependence, extreme events (prolonged rainfall), site‐specific sanitation quality, environmental stochasticity, monthly rainfall variation, uncertainty in parameters, and spatial dynamics. We parameterize the model through a real‐world application in the district of Porto de Galinhas (PG), one of the main touristic destinations in Brazil, where previous studies identified four parasite populations within the metapopulation. The results provide a good approximation of the dynamics of the system and are in agreement with our field observations, i.e., the lack of basic infrastructure (sanitation level and health programs) makes PG a suitable habitat for the persistence and growth of a parasite metapopulation. We quantify the risk of SM metapopulation explosion and quasi‐extinction and the time to metapopulation explosion and quasi‐extinction. We evaluate the sensitivity of the results under varying scenarios of future periodic PZQ treatment (based on the Brazilian Ministry of Health's plan) and sanitation quality. We conclude that the plan might be useful to slow SM metapopulation growth but not to control it. Additional investments in better sanitation are necessary.     

Accurate estimation for extra-Poisson variability assuming random effect models

In this study, the components of extra-Poisson variability are estimated assuming random effect models under a Bayesian approach. A standard existing methodology to estimate extra-Poisson variability assumes a negative binomial distribution. The obtained results show that using the proposed random effect model it is possible to get more accurate estimates for the extra-Poisson variability components when compared to the use of a negative binomial distribution where it is possible to estimate only one component of extra-Poisson variability. Some illustrative examples are introduced considering real data sets.     

OLS and IV estimation of regression models including endogenous interaction terms

We analyze a class of linear regression models including interactions of endogenous regressors and exogenous covariates. We show how to generate instrumental variables using the nonlinear functional form of the structural equation when traditional excluded instruments are unknown. We propose to use these instruments with identification robust IV inference. We furthermore show that, whenever functional form identification is not valid, the ordinary least squares (OLS) estimator of the coefficient of the interaction term is consistent and standard OLS inference applies. Using our alternative empirical methods we confirm recent empirical findings on the nonlinear causal relation between financial development and economic growth.     

‘Before they kill my spirit entirely’: insights into the lived experiences of American Indian Alaska Native faculty at research universities

American Indian and Alaska Natives (AIAN) comprise about 2% of the US population and 0.5% of the faculty in higher education. While scholars have documented the experiences of underrepresented minority (URM) faculty, the perspectives of AIAN faculty at elite universities are largely absent. Although AIAN faculty share many of the same barriers to success as URM colleagues, their unique status as Tribal peoples and their relationship to settler colonialism pose particular challenges and resistance strategies. Findings from a mixed methods study of 25 AIAN faculty at research universities, employing a decolonizing, survivance-oriented framework, examines their lived institutional experiences. The data yielded five themes regarding (1) institutional climate, (2) mentorship, (3) family–work balance, (4) cultural taxation and role stress, and (5) discrimination. The authors conclude that decolonization involves the repatriation of Indigenous epistemologies and Indigenous ‘place’ in the growth of science, research, and knowledge production, creating liberatory spaces within the academy.