The Nominal Group: A New Tool for Making Social Work Education Relevant

This article describes the nominal group technique and delineates the application of the approach to identifying specific course topics and emphases sought by students enrolling in undergraduate and graduate social work courses.     

Life Expectancy during the Great Depression in Eleven European Countries

The recent global economic recession has renewed interest in knowing whether a declining economy affects population health. Understanding the extreme case of the Great Depression may inform the current debate as well as theory regarding biological and behavioral adaptations to unwanted economic change. We test the hypothesis, recently suggested in the literature, that period life expectancy at birth improved during the Great Depression. We applied time‐series methods to annual period life expectancy data of the civilian population from eleven European countries. Methods control for trends and other forms of autocorrelation in life expectancy that could induce spurious associations. We cannot reject the null hypothesis that period life expectancy at birth during the Great Depression remained within the interval forecasted from historical values. Additional analyses using an automated, rule‐based methodology also cannot reject the null hypothesis. During the most severe phase of the Great Depression, period life expectancy in eleven European countries generally did not rise above expected levels.     

Cross cultural comparisons of quality of life of Thais and Americans

Comparisons of quality of life (QOL) measures across cultures of countries in different stages of economic development have been very scarce. This study attempts to fill the void in the literature by investigating the level of overall life satisfaction and satisfaction with various domains of lives of Thais and Americans. Additionally, the relationships between satisfaction with domains of life and overall life satisfaction in each culture have been explored. The results of this study indicate that Thais are less satisfied with their lives in general and most of the domains of their lives than Americans. However, both Thais and Americans tend to be more satisfied with their personal domains of lives than environmental domains of lives. In addition, satisfaction with material possessions is found to contribute significantly to overall life satisfaction of Thais but not Americans. This suggests that material wealth or economic development is still a vital mechanism for enhancing QOL of people in Thailand, but is not important for enhancing QOL of people in the U.S.     

Explaining the association of race and ethnicity with the HIV/AIDS-related attitudes,behaviors and skills of high school students

This study deals with intervening factors such as family composition, religiosity, and HIV/AIDS knowledge in understanding the association of race and ethnicity with HIV/AIDS-related attitudes and behaviors. Data represent Wave 1 of a five-month panel design involving 10th grade students in eight public high schools in Dade County (greater Miami) Florida. Significant differences in attitudes and behaviors were found among racial/ethnic groups. Specifically, Hispanics had more negative attitudes about condom use than blacks or whites. Whites had the most permissive, and blacks the least permissive, sexual attitudes. Hispanics felt least confident and blacks felt most confident about interpersonal sexual skills. Blacks were most likely to have had sexual intercourse, and whites least likely. Religiosity was found to be a significant intervening variable in the less permissive sexual attitudes of both blacks and Hispanics. The most significant implication of this study is that racial/ethnic differences in sexual behavior can be explained more fully by socio-environmental factors such as family structure or religiosity than by knowledge or attitudes. Thus, interventions directed toward minority populations should focus on the development of alternative social environments that would support more positive behaviors. More specifically, extended family, religious youth groups, and other community organizations should be brought into the HIV/AIDS risk-reduction arena.     

A generating algorithm for linear trend-free and nearly linear trend-free block designs

The theory and properties of trend-free (TF) and nearly trend-free (NTF) block designs are wel1 developed. Applications have been hampered because a methodology for design construction has not been available.

This article begins with a short review of concepts and properties of TF and NTF block designs. The major contribution is provision of an algorithm for the construction of linear and nearly linear TF block designs. The algorithm is incorporated in a computer program in FORTRAN 77 provided in an appendix for the IBM PC or compatible microcomputer, a program adaptable also to other computers. Three sets of block designs generated by the program are given as examples.

A numerical example of analysis of a linear trend-free balanced incomplete block design is provided.     

Understanding increments in model performance metrics

The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) is the most commonly reported measure of discrimination for prediction models with binary outcomes. However, recently it has been criticized for its inability to increase when important risk factors are added to a baseline model with good discrimination. This has led to the claim that the reliance on the AUC as a measure of discrimination may miss important improvements in clinical performance of risk prediction rules derived from a baseline model. In this paper we investigate this claim by relating the AUC to measures of clinical performance based on sensitivity and specificity under the assumption of multivariate normality. The behavior of the AUC is contrasted with that of discrimination slope. We show that unless rules with very good specificity are desired, the change in the AUC does an adequate job as a predictor of the change in measures of clinical performance. However, stronger or more numerous predictors are needed to achieve the same increment in the AUC for baseline models with good versus poor discrimination. When excellent specificity is desired, our results suggest that the discrimination slope might be a better measure of model improvement than AUC. The theoretical results are illustrated using a Framingham Heart Study example of a model for predicting the 10-year incidence of atrial fibrillation.     

Follow-up surveys for census estimates of maternal mortality: experiences from Bolivia and Mozambique

Maternal mortality measurement through special census questions will be a common practice in the 2010 census round. To check this information or make it cause-specific, some countries have experimented with follow-up surveys containing verbal autopsies or triangulation with administrative data. However, follow-up studies can be costly and not without complications. In order to assess the benefits, two such experiences are discussed in detail (Bolivia, 2002; and Mozambique 2007–2008) and two others mentioned more briefly (Islamic Republic of Iran, 1996; and Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, 2008). In the former, several problems were apparent. In Mozambique, the follow-up survey used a cluster sample of 4.5% of deaths, from all causes. This design was adequate for the more common causes, but not for maternal mortality. Another problem was the large proportion of invalid cases (35.1%, plus 16% not verifiable) and the likelihood that there was a similar proportion of omitted deaths. The Bolivian census generated many invalid cases and missing ages, due in part to the flawed design of the questionnaire. This overburdened the follow-up, so that only 15% of the census deaths of women of reproductive age unrelated to pregnancy could be investigated. Once the false positives were eliminated, the results seem consistent with Growth Balance analyses, but the many classification errors compromise confidence in the results. Despite this mixed record of outcomes, it is believed that carrying out a limited number of similar studies in the current census round may be valuable, if appropriate lessons are learned from these experiences.     

SOS—Satisfied or Stuck,Why Older Rural Residents Stay Put: Aging in Place or Stuck in Place in Rural Utah*

As rural communities undergo substantial demographic and economic changes, understanding the migration intentions and their antecedents of rural elderly persons becomes increasingly important. Using data drawn from a survey of adults from 24 rural Utah communities conducted in 2008, we examine whether rural residents 60 years of age or older plan to remain in their present communities (N= 621). We use structural equation models (SEM) to estimate the relationships between a variety of individual and community-level background measures, including perceptions of local service quality, leaving one's community for health care, Internet use, attachment to and satisfaction with community, and plans to age in place. Results suggest that even as the rural context of economic decline, population loss, and distance to medical services may reduce the viability of staying in a community, a desire to remain in the community is primarily a function of perceptions of the quality of local services and community satisfaction. This research highlights the need to better understand the interplay between the availability of medical services and perceptions of distance as well as to understand the complex relationship between individual and community level characteristics for migration intentions.