Structured measurement error in nutritional epidemiology: applications in the Pregnancy, Infection, and Nutrition (PIN) Study

Preterm birth, defined as delivery before 37 completed weeks' gestation, is a leading cause of infant morbidity and mortality. Identifying factors related to preterm delivery is an important goal of public health professionals who wish to identify etiologic pathways to target for prevention. Validation studies are often conducted in nutritional epidemiology in order to study measurement error in instruments that are generally less invasive or less expensive than "gold standard" instruments. Data from such studies are then used in adjusting estimates based on the full study sample. However, measurement error in nutritional epidemiology has recently been shown to be complicated by correlated error structures in the study-wide and validation instruments. Investigators of a study of preterm birth and dietary intake designed a validation study to assess measurement error in a food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) administered during pregnancy and with the secondary goal of assessing whether a single administration of the FFQ could be used to describe intake over the relatively short pregnancy period, in which energy intake typically increases. Here, we describe a likelihood-based method via Markov Chain Monte Carlo to estimate the regression coefficients in a generalized linear model relating preterm birth to covariates, where one of the covariates is measured with error and the multivariate measurement error model has correlated errors among contemporaneous instruments (i.e. FFQs, 24-hour recalls, and/or biomarkers). Because of constraints on the covariance parameters in our likelihood, identifiability for all the variance and covariance parameters is not guaranteed and, therefore, we derive the necessary and suficient conditions to identify the variance and covariance parameters under our measurement error model and assumptions. We investigate the sensitivity of our likelihood-based model to distributional assumptions placed on the true folate intake by employing semi-parametric Bayesian methods through the mixture of Dirichlet process priors framework. We exemplify our methods in a recent prospective cohort study of risk factors for preterm birth. We use long-term folate as our error-prone predictor of interest, the food-frequency questionnaire (FFQ) and 24-hour recall as two biased instruments, and serum folate biomarker as the unbiased instrument. We found that folate intake, as measured by the FFQ, led to a conservative estimate of the estimated odds ratio of preterm birth (0.76) when compared to the odds ratio estimate from our likelihood-based approach, which adjusts for the measurement error (0.63). We found that our parametric model led to similar conclusions to the semi-parametric Bayesian model.     

High-cost religion, religious switching, and health

Previous research has devoted significant attention to understanding the link between health and personal religious beliefs and practices, typically finding that more religious people tend to have better health. However, almost no attention has been given to how switching religious groups or leaving religion altogether is related to self-reported health. Due to selection and causation mechanisms, switching from high-cost groups that are theologically and culturally exclusive could be associated with poor health more than switching from other religious groups. Using data from the 1972 through 2006 General Social Surveys, we examine the relationship between health and religious switching as moderated by the religious tradition of origin. We find that people who are raised and stay in high-cost sectarian groups, such as the Latter-day Saints and Jehovah's Witnesses, have better self-reported health than those raised and staying in other religious traditions. However, people who leave such groups are more likely to report worse health than those who leave other groups.     

Economic Factors and Relationship Quality Among Young Couples: Comparing Cohabitation and Marriage

Are economic resources related to relationship quality among young couples, and to what extent does this vary by relationship type? To answer these questions, we estimated regression models predicting respondent reports of conflict and affection in cohabiting and married partner relationships using the National Longitudinal Study of Youth, 1997 (NLSY97, N = 2,841) and the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health, N = 1,702). We found that economic factors are an important predictor of conflict for both married and cohabiting couples. Affection was particularly responsive to human capital rather than short‐term economic indicators. Economic hardship was associated with more conflict among married and cohabiting couples.     

The Couple That Prays Together: Race and Ethnicity,Religion, and Relationship Quality Among Working‐Age Adults

A substantial body of research has shown that relationship quality tends to be (a) lower among racial and ethnic minorities and (b) higher among more religious persons and among couples in which partners share common religious affiliations, practices, and beliefs. However, few studies have examined the interplay of race or ethnicity and religion in shaping relationship quality. Our study addresses this gap in the literature using data from the National Survey of Religion and Family Life (NSRFL), a 2006 telephone survey of 2,400 working‐age adults (ages 18–59), which contains oversamples of African Americans and Latinos. Results underscore the complex nature of the effects of race and ethnicity, as well as religious variables. In particular, we found that couples' in‐home family devotional activities and shared religious beliefs are positively linked with reports of relationship quality.     

Controlling for Response Biases Clarifies Sex and Age Differences in Facial Affect Recognition

Sex, age and education differences in facial affect recognition were assessed within a large sample (n = 7,320). Results indicate superior performance by females and younger individuals in the correct identification of facial emotion, with the largest advantage for low intensity expressions. Though there were no demographic differences for identification accuracy on neutral faces, controlling for response biases by males and older individuals to label faces as neutral revealed sex and age differences for these items as well. This finding suggests that inferior facial affect recognition performance by males and older individuals may be driven primarily by instances in which they fail to detect the presence of emotion in facial expressions. Older individuals also demonstrated a greater tendency to label faces with negative emotion choices, while females exhibited a response bias for sad and fear. These response biases have implications for understanding demographic differences in facial affect recognition.     

To tell or not to tell: the impact of disclosure on sexual assault survivors' recovery

There is a growing body of research examining the disclosure of sexual assault. But the focus on time to first disclosure does not capture the whole picture. Survivors also differ in how long they continue to disclose, to whom they disclose, and the types of reactions received during disclosure. To provide a more comprehensive view of disclosure, this study sought to identify patterns of disclosure among a sample of 103 female sexual assault survivors recruited from the community. This study also sought to identify characteristics of each disclosure pattern, differences in how each disclosure pattern tends to unfold (e.g., who is told and how they react), and differences in how these disclosure patterns are related to physical and mental health outcomes. Results revealed four distinct disclosure patterns: nondisclosers, slow starters, crisis disclosers, and ongoing disclosers. Assault characteristics and rape acknowledgment distinguished nondisclosers and slow starters from the other two disclosure groups. Slow starters were also less likely to disclose to police and medical personnel and received negative reactions less frequently while nondisclosers experienced more symptoms of depression and posttraumatic stress than other groups. Implications of these findings for future research and practice are discussed.     

Forensic, cultural, and systems issues in child sexual abuse cases--part 1: an introduction

This article introduces the first in a two-part special issue focusing on forensic, cultural, and systems issues in child sexual abuse cases. The five articles contained in this issue include a diversity of perspectives on approaches to extended interviews and evaluations of child sexual abuse suspicions, an exploration of the ways culture affects child sexual abuse disclosure and reporting, considerations relevant to the management of a child's mental health needs while forensic process are ongoing, and the use of anatomical dolls in forensic interviews. We call for attention to several practice areas, including (a) prioritizing a child's mental health needs while minimizing disruption of forensic processes, (b) developing best practices and models of child sexual abuse assessment and evaluation when a one-session forensic interview is insufficient, (c) appropriately evaluating child sexual abuse concerns when they occur without a disclosure and/or in children with communication limitations, and (d) the integration of cultural sensitivity into interviews and evaluations.     

The Service Provider and Medication Usage Grids: A New Method to Measure “Treatment as Usual” (TAU)

This article reviews the creation and evaluation of two instruments that measure “treatment as usual” (TAU) in a clinical research setting. The Service Provider and Medication Usage Grids were developed to assess children’s past and current utilization of mental health services and medications. A pilot study revealed that compared to information gathered from other sources, these instruments provide an accurate method to assess, record, and track TAU in clinical studies. In addition, these instruments provide a clear and concise way to organize this information and do not require much time to administer. Limitations and directions for future research are discussed.     

Less help for mother: The decline in coresidential female support for the mothers of young children, 1880–2000

Research on changes in women's parenting has focused primarily on their increased likelihood of combining parenthood with paid employment, exploring the pressures that result from this "second shift" or "double burden." This article complements this approach by focusing instead on the likely reduction in the help that mothers of small children have received as declines both in fertility and the coresidence of nonnuclear adults have reduced the number of other women in the household. Using national census data for the period 1880 to 2000, we show a substantial decline in the presence and availability of other females in the household, as fewer are coresident and more of those who are coresident are employed or in school. Although all mothers experience this decline, it is most acute for mothers working for pay in nonagricultural activities.