The Future Challenge for Direct Payments

Since 1997, Local Authorities have had the discretionary power to pay cash directly to disabled adults up to the age of 65 and assessed as needing social service support. More recently, the scope of Direct Payments has been widened to include people aged over 65 years and will, under the Health and Social Care Act 2001, be extended to further groups including disabled people from 16 to 18 years of age and parent carers of young children with impairments. Direct Payments have the potential not only to impact radically upon an individual's quality of life but also to influence the 'community care' market economy and the way personal support services are purchased and delivered in the future. Recent figures from a survey undertaken by the Association of Directors of Social Services suggest that 80% of local authorities have already introduced a Direct Payments scheme and that over 3500 people are already in receipt of direct payments (Jones, 2000). This paper is based upon evidence from a user-controlled Best Value Review of Direct Payments (BVDP) in Wiltshire. It explores, from disabled people's perspective, the advantages and disadvantages of Direct Payments, and demonstrates the challenges still facing both service users and service providers.     

The utility of experimental design short courses?

This paper describes the one‐day introduction to experimental design training course at GlaxoSmithKline. In particular, the use of paper helicopter experiments has been an effective and efficient method for teaching experimental design techniques to scientific and other staff. A good supporting strategy by which the statistics department provides back‐up following the course is essential. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Bayesian decision theory approach to variable selection for discrimination

Motivated by examples in spectroscopy, we study variable selection for discrimination in problems with very many predictor variables. Assuming multivariate normal distributions with common variance for the predictor variables within groups, we develop a Bayesian decision theory approach that balances costs for variables against a loss due to classification errors. The approach is computationally intensive, requiring a simulation to approximate the intractable expected loss and a search, using simulated annealing, over a large space of possible subsets of variables. It is illustrated by application to a spectroscopic example with 3 groups, 100 variables, and 71 training cases, where the approach finds subsets of between 5 and 14 variables whose discriminatory power is comparable with that of linear discriminant analysis using principal components derived from the full 100 variables. We study both the evaluation of expected loss and the tuning of the simulated annealing for the example, and conclude that computational effort should be concentrated on the search.     

Transnational Families: Memories and Narratives

This introduction to a special issue of the journal explores not only the role of memory and narratives in understanding gender and transnational families, but suggests how such families use and understand their memories to construct coherent narratives of the self and kin. In common with renewed thinking about the multifaceted nature of migration, the complexities of the process, and the continuing dialogue that migration establishes between the old and the new, the past and the present, those who engage with oral history/life story methods are increasingly aware that such data provide a ‘value added’ to rich empirical detail. These methods reveal the use of memory and its role in the continuing emotional adjustments in which most transnational experience is embroiled. They show how the multi‐layering of memory, language and narratives are indicators of the ways in which culture shapes recall and recounting. Families themselves become sites of belonging, part of the imaginary unity through which a transnational family may seek its identity. Equally, oral histories can tease out ways in which gender differences impact on, or are impacted by, transnational lives. The introduction situates the subsequent articles within a brief overview of oral history and migration.     

Logic and Motivation in Risk Research: A Nuclear Waste Test Case

After two decades of massive investigation, federal approval of a nuclear waste site is drawing to a close. Large-scale research to assure that major hazards such as this one are socially acceptable is often highly inefficient, as here. A regulatory remedy would be to require not only that risk currently assessed be acceptable, but also that risk would remain acceptable given any new information. Research to test compliance with these rules has to be cost effective. Research activities should be managed according to an explicit discipline that can be imposed on powerful conflicting interests. They might be required to (1) set targets for the first- and second-order risk assessments, (2) allocate research resources to close any gap between current and target assessments cost effectively, and (3) reallocate resources, as evolving findings dictate. The interests of license applicant (Department of Energy, DOE) and society are distinguished: the former would want the application approved; the latter would want to reject an unacceptable facility.     

Complexity,Chaos, and Nonlinear Dynamics: A New Perspective on Career Development Theory

The author presents a theory of career development drawing on nonlinear dynamics and chaos and complexity theories. Career is presented as a complex adaptive entity, a fractal of the human entity. Characteristics of complex adaptive entities, including (a) autopiesis, or self‐regeneration; (b) open exchange; (c) participation in networks; (d) fractals; (e) phase transitions between order and chaos, (f) search for fitness peaks; (g) nonlinear dynamics; (h) sensitive dependence, (i) attractors that limit growth; (j) the role of strange attractors in emergence; and (k) spirituality, are described and then applied to careers. The article concludes with a brief case analysis and implications for practice and research.     

Debt and Financial Expectations: An Individual- and Household-Level Analysis

In this article we show that optimistic financial expectations impact positively on both the quantity of debt and the growth in debt at the individual and household levels. Our theoretical model shows that this association is predicted under a variety of plausible scenarios. In the empirical analysis we explore the determinants of debt and of growth in debt using British data. We find convincing support for our theoretical priors and show that it is optimistic financial expectations per se that are important in influencing debt, rather than the accuracy of individuals' predictions regarding their future financial situation.     

Reducing disablement with adequate and appropriate resources: a New Zealand perspective

This article presents the qualitative findings from a larger mixed methods study of the barriers and costs associated with disability in New Zealand. A social model of disability framework was integrated with an economic cost model using consensual budget standards to (1) identify key barriers disabled people experience in their everyday living and (2) develop consensus about the resources disabled people agree they require to reduce or remove them. Forty-nine people with physical, hearing, vision or intellectual impairment participated in a series of 8 impairment-based focus groups. The analysis identified inaccessible environments, negative attitudes, unreliable transportation and poor access to information as key barriers. However, lack of adequate and appropriate resources (e.g. equipment, modifications, support, transport and time) to address these barriers was the overarching obstacle to participation. The inclusion of time as both a barrier and a valuable resource is arguably the most important contribution of the study.     

A statistical method for synthesizing mediation analyses using the product of coefficient approach across multiple trials

Mediation analysis often requires larger sample sizes than main effect analysis to achieve the same statistical power. Combining results across similar trials may be the only practical option for increasing statistical power for mediation analysis in some situations. In this paper, we propose a method to estimate: (1) marginal means for mediation path a, the relation of the independent variable to the mediator; (2) marginal means for path b, the relation of the mediator to the outcome, across multiple trials; and (3) the between-trial level variance–covariance matrix based on a bivariate normal distribution. We present the statistical theory and an R computer program to combine regression coefficients from multiple trials to estimate a combined mediated effect and confidence interval under a random effects model. Values of coefficients a and b, along with their standard errors from each trial are the input for the method. This marginal likelihood based approach with Monte Carlo confidence intervals provides more accurate inference than the standard meta-analytic approach. We discuss computational issues, apply the method to two real-data examples and make recommendations for the use of the method in different settings.     

Understanding Condom Use Decision Making Among Homeless Youth Using Event-Level Data

This is one of the first qualitative event-based studies to understand the various mechanisms through which multiple factors influence condom use decision making among homeless youth. Event-level interviews that explore characteristics of the environment surrounding sexual events were conducted with 29 youth who were asked to describe two recent sexual encounters. In thematic analyses of data across events, reasons that youth gave for engaging in unprotected sex included the expectation of having sex and use of alternative methods of protection against pregnancy. Other nonevent factors that influenced condom use decision making were related to attributes of the partnership (e.g., testing, trust and love, and assessments of risk) and attributes of the youth (e.g., perceptions of diseases, concerns over pregnancy, and discomfort using condoms). Additional event analyses conducted within the same individuals found that decision making was influenced by multiple interacting factors, with different pathways operating for event and nonevent factors. Future interventions should consider taking a multilevel and individualized approach that focuses on event-based determinants of risky sex in this population.