Facilitators and barriers to family engagement and retention of young children in mental health care: A qualitative study of caregivers’ perspectives

This study examines facilitators and barriers that influence family engagement and retention of children in mental healthcare from the parent and caregiver perspective. Researchers recruited and interviewed parents and caregivers (n=18) from urban community health and early childcare centers. The study team analyzed the data and identified barriers to retention in care, including stigma, lack of integrated health care services,and a shortage of providers with the expertise in early childhood mental health care. Social workers, case managers, parent peers, and community support groups helped facilitate parent and caregiver engagement and retention of children in care. Education,community support programs, and integrated healthcare systems would improve access to quality early childhood mental health care.     

Implementing and sustaining evidence-based practice in health care: The Bridge Model experience

This qualitative study analyzed the experience of community-based organizations (CBOs) implementing and sustaining the Bridge Model of Transitional Care, a social work-based health service intervention for reducing hospital readmissions. We conducted semi-structured interviews with clinical supervisors from 13 CBOs that received Bridge Model training between 2012 and 2015. CBOs faced significant challenges implementing and sustaining transitional care programs, particularly related to building effective and sustainable partnerships with hospitals. Additional barriers to program implementation and sustainability included financial barriers and staff turnover. Facilitators to implementation and sustainability included organizational champions, organizational culture, and value of evidence. Recommendations for CBOs to implement health service interventions include gaining early buy-in from hospital partners, creating a contractual arrangement with the hospital partner, understanding changes in health-care payment models, diversifying funding sources, developing an evaluation plan, and nurturing organizational champions.     

Some Remarks on Statistical Education

A definition of the subject of statistics is given, and the difference between the chalkboard world of the teacher of statistics and the real world of the experimenter is stressed. An overemphasis on significance testing, hypothesis testing, and decision procedures has led to a de-emphasis of statistical design. The teaching of statistical design theory, statistics teaching in a changing world, the importance of model building, and different approaches to teaching statistics are discussed. Some published materials developed to meet teaching needs and a new type of statistics course are described. Information about special issues in statistical education (teaching and consulting) is presented.     

An Analysis of the Game of Tennis

The American Statistical Association conducted a pilot study to develop methodology to conduct a nationwide evaluation of survey practices and the quality of survey data. This article is a report on the objectives and principal findings of that pilot study. In addition, the objectives of the nationwide study are presented.     

Superiority comparisons of homogeneous linear estimators

In the paper homogeneous linear estimators of the parameter vector of the general linear model are compared in terms of their MSE matrices. A necessary and sufficient condition for the difference of two MSE matrices to be positive definite is obtained and its practical existence discussed. The non-negative definiteness of the difference also receives attention, and conditions for this case are discussed. The absence of any conditions of the above type is taken into consideration as well.     

Odds ratio inference from stratified samples

One of the common problems encountered in applied statistics is that of comparing two proportions from stratified samples. One approach to this problem is via inference on the corresponding odds ratio. In this paper, the various point and interval estimators of and hypothesis testing procedures for a common odds ratio from multiple 2 ×2 tables are reviewed. Based On research to date, the conditional maximum likelihood and Mantel-Haenszel estimators are recommended as the point estimators of choice. Neither confidence intervals nor hypothesis testing metthods have been studied as well as the point estimators, but there is a confidence interval method associated with the Mantel-Haenszel estimator that is a good choice.     

Unit-Root Tests and Asymmetric Adjustment With an Example Using the Term Structure of Interest Rates

This article develops critical values to test the null hypothesis of a unit root against the alternative of stationarity with asymmetric adjustment. Specific attention is paid to threshold and momentum threshold autoregressive processes. The standard Dickey–Fuller tests emerge as a special case. Within a reasonable range of adjustment parameters, the power of the new tests is shown to be greater than that of the corresponding Dickey–Fuller test. The use of the tests is illustrated using the term structure of interest rates. It is shown that the movements toward the long-run equilibrium relationship are best estimated as an asymmetric process.     

Specification and Identification of Stochastic Demand Models

This paper is concerned with stochastic demand systems for continuous choices that arise from structural random utility models. It examines under which nonparametric conditions on the structural random utility specification the implied reduced form model is nonsingular and invertible. For parametric members within this class of random utility models, the paper provides conditions for local identification from the reduced form under moment assumptions.     

Estimation of proportions by group testing with retesting of positive groups

Abstract

When estimating a proportion p by group testing, and it is desired to increase precision, it is sometimes impractical to obtain additional individuals but it is possible to retest groups formed from the individuals within the groups that test positive at the first stage. Hepworth and Watson assessed four methods of retesting, and recommended a random regrouping of individuals from the first stage. They developed an estimator of p for their proposed method, and, because of the analytic complexity, used simulation to examine its variance properties. We now provide an analytical solution to the variance of the estimator, and compare its performance with the earlier simulated results. We show that our solution gives an acceptable approximation in a reasonable range of circumstances.