What If Hurricane Ivan Had Not Missed New Orleans?*

Author's Note: As I was developing the hypothetical situation depicting a devastating hurricane striking New Orleans, Louisiana, the disaster waiting to happen threatened to become a reality: Hurricane Ivan, a Category 4 hurricane (140 mph winds) fluctuating to a Category 5 (up to 155 mph winds), was slowly moving directly toward New Orleans. Forecasters were predicting a one‐in‐four chance that Ivan would remain on this direct path and would be an “extreme storm” at landfall. In reality, the storm veered to the north and made landfall east of Mobile Bay, Alabama, causing devastation and destruction well into the central Gulf shoreline and throughout the Southeast and the mid‐Atlantic states.     

The role of demographic data in the operation of public policy: a case study of the job training partnership act

To work at the state and local levels, the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) requires specific kinds of demographic data. Unemployment figures, poverty information, occupational supply and demand data, wage structure, and many other types of data are used in planning and operating JTPA programs, and in modifying the performance standards by which the programs are evaluated. The decennial census provides some key data and thus some significant types of information become less timely as the decade progresses. Furthermore, the framers of the Act had little or no knowledge of the forms in which data are collected and thus definitions given in the Act do not always agree with definitions used in the demographic data which are available. The policymakers for future government benefit programs could learn from this mistake: before writing legislation which is so heavily dependent on demographic data, they should ascertain what types of data are available or can be generated for use in the program.     

The experience of disabled and non-disabled students on professional practice placements in the United Kingdom

There are limited comparisons between the experience of disabled students in higher education and their non-disabled peers, particularly on practice placements. This article presents the results of such a comparison, across six professional disciplines in one UK university. The results revealed that both disabled and non-disabled students reported positive placement experiences and also similar difficulties. Such difficulties were exacerbated for some disabled students, however, including as a consequence of the attitudes of others to disability. Recommendations for practice are identified that aim to enhance the placement experience of all students and to remove barriers to access.     

Health Professionals' Responses to Disclosure of Child Sexual Abuse History: Female Child Sexual Abuse Survivors' Experiences

This study reports on a postal questionnaire, conducted in 2004, with female survivors of historic child sexual abuse. The questionnaire explored their experiences of health professionals' responsiveness to disclosure of child sexual abuse history. Of 61 participants, aged between 22 and 65, 69% had disclosed to health professionals. Those who had not disclosed reported that they would have liked to but were not asked about child sexual abuse. Thirty-five percent of participants suggested routine questioning about child sexual abuse. Most participants related a fear of common medical examination procedures to their experience of child sexual abuse, and 64% said this stopped them from attending regular health checks. The current study suggests the development of guidelines for dealing with possible child sexual abuse survivors would be useful for health professionals.     

Modelling heterogeneity of survival in band-recovery data using mixtures

Finite mixture methods are applied to bird band-recovery studies to allow for heterogeneity of survival. Birds are assumed to belong to one of finitely many groups, each of which has its own survival rate (or set of survival rates varying by time and/or age). The group to which a specific animal belongs is not known, so its survival probability is a random variable from a finite mixture. Heterogeneity is thus modelled as a latent effect. This gives a wide selection of likelihood-based models, which may be compared using likelihood ratio tests. These models are discussed with reference to real and simulated data, and compared with previous models.