The stability and sensitivity of subjective well-being measures

A longitudinal investigation of the stability and sensitivity of several subjective social indicators is presented. Over a seven year period, data collected from 93 Canadians indicated moderate stability for measures of enjoyment, satisfaction, and life quality. When respondents were divided into “change” and “no change” groups on the basis of their self-reported health status, the self-anchoring ladder of present life quality was found to be sensitive to change. Implications of this methodological inquiry are examined.     

The application of robust Bayesian analysis to hypothesis testing and Occam's Razor

Summary Robust Bayesian analysis deals simultaneously with a class of possible prior distributions, instead of a single distribution. This paper concentrates on the surprising results that can be obtained when applying the theory to problems of testing precise hypotheses when the “objective” class of prior distributions is assumed. First, an example is given demonstrating the serious inadequacy of P-values for this problem. Next, it is shown how the approach can provide statistical quantification of Occam's Razor, the famous principle of science that advocates choice of the simpler of two hypothetical explanations of data. Finally, the theory is applied to multinomial testing. Research supported by the National Science Foundation, Grant DMS-8923071, and by NASA Contract NAS5-29285 for the hubble Space Telescope.     

A method for simulating familial disease data with variable age at onset and genetic and environmental effects

The field of genetic epidemiology is growing rapidly with the realization that many important diseases are influenced by both genetic and environmental factors. For this reason, pedigree data are becoming increasingly valuable as a means of studying patterns of disease occurrence. Analysis of pedigree data is complicated by the lack of independence among family members and by the non-random sampling schemes used to ascertain families. An additional complicating factor is the variability in age at disease onset from one person to another. In developing statistical methods for analysing pedigree data, analytic results are often intractable, making simulation studies imperative for assessing the performance of proposed methods and estimators. In this paper, an algorithm is presented for simulating disease data in pedigrees, incorporating variable age at onset and genetic and environmental effects. Computational formulas are developed in the context of a proportional hazards model and assuming single ascertainment of families, but the methods can be easily generalized to alternative models. The algorithm is computationally efficient, making multi-dataset simulation studies feasible. Numerical examples are provided to demonstrate the methods.     

An Enforceable Indoor Air Quality Standard for Environmental Tobacco Smoke in the Workplace1

Environmental tobacco smoke (ETS)has recently been determined by U.S. environmental and occupational health authorities to be a human carcinogen. We develop a model which permits using atmospheric nicotine measurements to estimate nonsmokers’ETS lung cancer risks in individual workplaces for the first time. We estimate that during the 1980s, the U.S. nonsmoking adult population's median nicotine lung exposure (homes and workplaces combined)was 143 micrograms (μg)of nicotine daily, and that most-exposed adult nonsmokers inhaled 1430 μg/day. These exposure estimates are validated by pharmacokinetic modeling which yields the corresponding steady-state dose of the nicotine metabolite, cotinine. For U.S. adult nonsmokers of working age, we estimate median cotinine values of about 1.0 nanogram per milliliter (ng/ml)in plasma, and 6.2 ng/ml in urine; for most-exposed nonsmokers, we estimate cotinine concentrations of about 10 ng/ml in plasma and 62 ng/ml in urine. These values are consistent to within 15% of the cotinine values observed in contemporaneous clinical epidemiological studies. Corresponding median risk from ETS exposure in U.S. nonsmokers during the 1980s is estimated at about two lung cancer deaths (LCDs)per 1000 at risk, and for most-exposed nonsmokers, about two LCDs per 100. Risks abroad appear similar. Modeling of the lung cancer mortality risk from passive smoking suggests that de minimis [i.e., “acceptable” (10^-6)], risk occurs at an 8-hr time-weighted-average exposure concentration of 7.5 nanograms of ETS nicotine per cubic meter of workplace air for a working lifetime of 40 years. This model is based upon a linear exposure-response relationship validated by physical, clinical, and epidemiological data. From available data, it appears that workplaces without effective smoking policies considerably exceed this de minimis risk standard. For a substantial fraction of the 59 million nonsmoking workers in the U.S., current workplace exposure to ETS also appears to pose risks exceeding the de manifestos risk level above which carcinogens are strictly regulated by the federal government.     

Truth,misinterpretation, or left-wing McCarthyism?

It is “left-wing McCarthyism” to suggest that there was anything morally questionable or idiosyncratic about Talcott Parsons's 1948 effort to recruit displaced Soviet citizens for the Harvard Russian Research Center. There is no definite evidence that any of the people Parsons interviewed were “war criminals” by Nuremberg standards. The suggestion that Parsons aided possible Nazi collaborators stems from an ideologically motivated unwillingness to recognize the totalitarian and expansionist nature of the Soviet Union under Stalin which is unworthy of serious consideration.