Waivers of parental consent for sexual minority youth

ABSTRACT

The Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine emphasizes the need for research to focus on the health outcomes of sexual minority youth (i.e., lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer). However, sexual minority youth (SMY) are often less willing to participate in research studies where parental consent is required due to potential victimization and discrimination. This is a major concern given that more research is needed to understand the health needs of this population, especially in terms of suicide, substance use, and HIV prevention. The National Suicide Prevention Strategy classifies SMY as a high-risk group, emphasizing the need to explore suicide risks (along with other health outcomes) among this group. However, this high-risk classification also increases the safeguards necessary to conduct research with this population. Many researchers have argued for waivers of parental consent, but such waivers present with several ethical implications. This article discusses ethical principles, risks, benefits, safeguards, and potential alternative approaches to waivers of parental consent for SMY. We conclude by emphasizing the need for policy changes to allow parental consent waivers for research targeting SMY.     

Identifying and controlling for program-level differences in comparative cost analysis: lessons from the economic evaluation of the National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program

Performing economic evaluations of established health care programs is essential to identify and control for underlying program-level variations and to make valid comparisons. At a time when the need for such evaluations is growing, health care professionals have limited information on the methodological challenges of performing these evaluations. In this study, we used the National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program to illustrate these potential underlying variations. We performed site visits to four grantees and collected activity-based cost data from nine additional representative programs. We identified five specific types of cost factors that should be considered when evaluating and comparing health care programs: clinical services, service mix, in-kind contributions, indirect costs, and year-to-year expenditures of specific activities. A key lesson is that case studies and pilot testing should be performed before initiating cost analysis to identify underlying variation and to test appropriate methods to adequately control for these differences.     

A comprehensive workplace intervention and its outcome with regard to lifestyle, health and sick leave: the AHA study

This study is a prospective multicentre cohort study entitled Work and Health in the Processing and Engineering Industries, the AHA Study (AHA is the Swedish abbreviation for the study). Four large workplaces in Sweden participated during the years from 2000 to 2003. The present report has two objectives: (1) to present a comprehensive occupational health intervention programme and (2) to evaluate this programme with a focus on lifestyle (smoking and exercise), health related quality of life (HRQoL) and sick leave. Interventions were provided on an individual and group level, including evidence-based methods for four health/focus areas (individual level) and a group intervention based on a survey-feedback methodology. The analyses in this report were exclusively employed at an organizational level. The proportion of smokers decreased at three companies and the course of the HRQoL was advantageous at two of the companies as compared to a gainfully employed reference group. A significant decrease in sick leave was revealed at one company, whereas a break in an ascending sick-leave trend appeared at a second company as compared to their respective corporate groups. This comprehensive workplace intervention programme appears to have had positive effects on smoking habits, HRQoL and sick leave.     

论竞优及其管理

在阐述竞优行为及竞优思想的基础上,提出了竞优内核的概念,并分析了竞优内核的特性,指出了竞优活动的6个特点,对竞优管理的主要内容和流程进行了分析和阐述。研究表明,竞优是以认识和利用事物规律为前提,以知识为驱动,以展示行为主体优良为目的的一种主流行为;竞优观念可以改善人们认识事物的角度;差异性是竞优的必然现象,而多元化则是竞优群体的某种类型选择结果;竞优能够有效提升行为主体的社会价值,并促进社会组织的发展;建立健全民主集中制是竞优管理的基本要求。     

Who moves and who stays? Rural out-migration in Nigeria

Data from the nationally representative 1993 Migration and Urbanization Survey of Nigeria are used to simultaneously examine the patterns of rural-rural and rural-urban migration in Nigeria. A multinomial logistic regression model predicts the independent and collective association between individual, household, and regional variables and migration from rural areas to rural and urban destinations. Associations between education, religion and ethnicity and migration propensities exist at the national level. The Kanuri-Shua Arabs are generally non-migrants, the Hausa-Fulani and Yoruba are predominantly rural-rural migrants and the Igbo-Ibibio and Urhobo-Isoko-Edo are predominantly ruralurban migrants. Christians are significantly more mobile than Muslims. While the highly educated are most likely to choose an urban destination, a significant proportion migrate to other rural areas. Concern over population concentration is not supported, as rural migrants move to all regions and to urban and rural areas.     

Life and death in the sixteenth century in the City of York

Abstract Birth data obtained from the parish records of the City of York show a markedly bi-modal seasonal distribution in the sixteenth century. It appeared interesting to compare the expectation of life of individuals born during this period, during the two minimal and two maximal seasons, to determine if there was any adaptive significance in the annual variation of birth rate. No such effect could be established by this study. However, certain conclusions of considerable interest can be drawn. The survivorship functions for either sex, grouped by birth season or on the whole group, are of a rectilinear diagonal type more reminiscent of an avian population rather than man. However the York data were treated, no statistically significant difference appeared between the sexes when their expectation of life was compared, and the female death rate at all times until the end of life was somewhat higher than the male. It appeared that sixteenth-century York tended to care better for their sons than for their daughters, which also appears to be the case in some modern societies of low to moderate living standard.     

Bayesian and likelihood-based inference for the bivariate normal correlation coefficient

The paper develops some objective priors for correlation coefficient of the bivariate normal distribution. The criterion used is the asymptotic matching of coverage probabilities of Bayesian credible intervals with the corresponding frequentist coverage probabilities. The paper uses various matching criteria, namely, quantile matching, highest posterior density matching, and matching via inversion of test statistics. Each matching criterion leads to a different prior for the parameter of interest. We evaluate their performance by comparing credible intervals through simulation studies. In addition, inference through several likelihood-based methods have been discussed.     

管理者关系特性对海外子公司知识获取及公司绩效的影响研究

基于组织学习理论和社会资本理论,考察了管理者关系特性对海外子公司内外部网络知识获取和企业绩效的影响。研究结果显示,母子公司管理者之间的信任和沟通频率对获取母公司知识有正向影响,海外子公司管理者和本地重要企业管理者之间的信任对获取本地商务知识有正向影响,海外子公司管理者和本地政府主要负责人之间的私人关系对获取本地制度知识有显著影响。此外,本地制度知识在母公司知识对海外子公司绩效的影响中起正向调节作用,本地商务知识起负向调节作用。     

Correlated linear models for the analysis of familial correlations

The problems of estimation and hypotheses testing on the parameters of two correlated linear models are discussed. Such models are known to have direct applications in epidemiologic research, particularly in the field of family studies. When the data are unbalanced, the maximum-likelihood estimation of the parameters is achieved by adopting a fairly simple numerical algorithm. The asymptotic variances and covariances of the estimators are derived, and the procedures are illustrated on arterial-blood-pressure data from the literature.     

Measurement of inequality: An attempt at unification and generalization

This paper reviews and extends the theory of ethical inequality indices. It presents a novel axiom (strict separability of social welfare orderings in rank-ordered subspaces). This axiom allows to provide joint characterizations of the most important inequality measures (Atkinson family, Kolm-Pollak family and Generalized Ginis) and of some new more general classes of indices. The whole derivation is based on weak assumptions. In an ordinal framework only continuity of the underlying ordering is required and no cardinal properties are employed.I thank two anonymous referees for helpful comments and suggestions.