Technological innovation and inequality in health

The effect of education on health has been increasing over the past several decades. We hypothesize that this increasing disparity is related to health-related technical progress: more-educated people are the first to take advantage of technological advances that improve health. We test this hypothesis using data on disease-specific mortality rates for 1980 and 1990, and cancer registry data for 1973–1993. We estimate education gradients in mortality using compulsory schooling as a measure of education. We then relate these gradients to two measures of health-related innovation: the number of active drug ingredients available to treat a disease, and the rate of change in mortality from that disease. We find that more-educated individuals have a greater survival advantage in those diseases for which there has been more health-related technological progress.     

Toward a teacher solidarity lens: former teachers of color (re)envisioning educational research

Based on a two-year self-study by a group of early-career scholars of color, we explore and purposefully name our role, within the contemporary context of neoliberal reform, as educational researchers of color who are former K-12 teachers. We capture the insights that emerged from our self-study through a close reading of dominant neoliberal educational reform discourses, particularly through an examination of the writings of Michelle Rhee and Wendy Kopp. Along three dimensions of: (1) experience as teachers; (2) solidarity with teachers; and (3) analyses of racism in schooling, we characterize prominent discourses through which educators, researchers, and the public describe teachers and teaching. We name these discursive frames to make explicit the assumptions that are embedded in each and the intentional or inadvertent consequences of each. Finally, we propose a teacher solidarity lens through which we strive to approach our research and work with teachers.     

Brain drain in Venezuela: the scope of the human capital crisis

ABSTRACT

Brain drain, the exodus of highly skilled professionals, has a strong connection with Human Resource Development (HRD), as these experts are human capital for organizations, communities, and nations. In today’s global economy, HRD practitioners and scholars need to keep abreast of what circumstances trigger the migration of talented workers around the world and the implications for HRD. This article describes the brain drain in Venezuela. The magnitude of the talent crisis is the result of a complex combination of poor policy implementation, mismanagement, corruption, and socio-economic and political conflict. This article exposes the current realities and the repercussions the exodus of talent has had on Venezuela and the decline of a country that was once among the world’s richest, but is now an impoverished nation.     

Residual Kriging for Functional Spatial Prediction of Salinity Curves

Recently, several methodologies to perform geostatistical analysis of functional data have been proposed. All of them assume that the spatial functional process considered is stationary. However, in practice, we often have nonstationary functional data because there exists an explicit spatial trend in the mean. Here, we propose a methodology to extend kriging predictors for functional data to the case where the mean function is not constant through the region of interest. We consider an approach based on the classical residual kriging method used in univariate geostatistics. We propose a three steps procedure. Initially, a functional regression model is used to detrend the mean. Then we apply kriging methods for functional data to the regression residuals to predict a residual curve at a non-data location. Finally, the prediction curve is obtained as the sum of the trend and the residual prediction. We apply the methodology to salinity data corresponding to 21 salinity curves recorded at the Ciénaga Grande de Santa Marta estuary, located in the Caribbean coast of Colombia. A cross-validation analysis was carried out to track the performance of the proposed methodology.     

Individual Differences in Women's Salivary Testosterone and Estradiol Following Sexual Activity in a Nonlaboratory Setting

Objectives: The current study evaluated women's salivary testosterone and estradiol levels before and after exposure to sexual stimuli in a U.S. sex club. Methods: Behavioral data and salivary samples were collected from 19 women during semistructured interviews. Results: Findings demonstrate substantial individual differences in the magnitude and direction of women's hormonal changes following sexual activity. Conclusions: In an age of individualized medicine, these findings highlight the need to better understand factors shaping variation in physiological responses to sexual activity. Findings contribute to a relatively small and contradictory literature on women's hormonal responses to sexual stimuli.     

Chastity value as a risk factor for prostituted adolescents in Indonesia: a qualitative exploration

ABSTRACT

Previous studies suggest that the practice of female child and adolescent prostitution can be attributed to various personal and social risk factors. However, cultural beliefs shared in specific societies may also determine prostitution involvement. We qualitatively explored the risk factors associated with prostitution in a rarely investigated Indonesian society. We interviewed eight female participants who were involved in adolescent prostitution. The findings suggest that prostitution involvement is not only attributed to the common personal and social risk factors, but also to cultural beliefs of chastity preservation. We argue that such beliefs may be rooted in gender inequality.     

On using Bayesian networks for complexity reduction in decision trees

In this paper we use the Bayesian network as a tool of explorative analysis: its theory guarantees that, given the structure and some assumptions, the Markov blanket of a variable is the minimal conditioning set through which the variable is independent from all the others. We use the Markov blanket of a target variable to extract the relevant features for constructing a decision tree (DT). Our proposal reduces the complexity of the DT so it has a simpler visualization and it can be more easily interpretable. On the other hand, it maintains a good classification performance.     

Formative research methods to understand patient and provider responses to heart attack symptoms

Formative research is often required for program planning, and for reducing uncertainty about generalizability of program effects. This article describes and justifies methods of formative research conducted for the REACT study (Rapid Early Action for Coronary Treatment), a multi-center collaborative randomized community trial aimed at reducing patient delay in seeking care for acute myocardial infarction (AMI). Formative research cast light on patient and community members’ decision-making process in seeking help for AMI, as well as barriers and facilitators of this process. Investigators at all five REACT Field Centers participated in the formative research. The process consisted of: (1) developing a common theoretical framework for the study intervention; (2) conducting a literature review and qualitative research to identify and address gaps in knowledge; and (3) developing a common protocol for the REACT study that accommodated the diversity of the target communities in terms of services, resources, history, and ethnicity. Analysis employed triangulation, defined as an explicit search for heterogeneous data sources to reduce uncertainty about forces at work and opportunities for intervention across settings and populations. Because the collection and interpretation of data went in stages, staff of several REACT Field Centers had independent input to the overall synthesis, then shared and revised the results. Advantages and limitations of this approach are discussed.