Combining information from multiple surveys for assessing health disparities

Despite advances in public health practice and medical technology, the disparities in health among the various racial/ethnic and socioeconomic groups remain a concern which has prompted the Department of Human and Health Services to designate the elimination of disparities in health as an overarching goal of Healthy People 2010. To assess the progress towards this goal, suitable measures are needed at the population level that can be tracked over time; Statistical inferential procedures have to be developed for these population level measures; and the data sources have to be identified to allow for such inferences to be conducted. Popular data sources for health disparities research are large surveys such the National Health and Interview Survey (NHIS) or the Behavior Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS). The self-report disease status collected in these surveys may be inaccurate and the errors may be correlated with variables used in defining the groups. This article uses the National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey (NHANES) 99-00 to assess the extent of error in the self-report disease status; uses a Bayesian framework develop corrections for the self-report disease status in the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) 99-00; and compares inferences about various measures of health disparities, with and without correcting for measurement error. The methodology is illustrated using the disease outcome hypertension, a common risk factor for cardiovascular disease. JEL classification C1 (C11, C13, C15), C4 (C42) and I3 (I31, I38)     

E.B.怀特《夏洛的网》中的生态幻想世界

美国作家E.B.怀特在小说《夏洛的网》中以生动幽默的笔触构筑了人类世界与自然世界。在两者的双峰对峙中,怀特呈现了人类世界的人类中心主义、对自然的破坏以及自然世界的清新美好、动物的友爱互助,从而表达了对人与自然的关系、爱、友谊等问题的思考,传达了深刻的思想内涵。在《夏洛的网》所呈现的幻想世界中,夏洛、坦普尔顿等动物有深刻的寓意,并形成对比映衬关系。     

碎片·场景·沉浸——由互联网+短视频看未来电影制作的发展趋势

互联网2.0时代的媒介特性要求传播内容应具有碎片化、场景式与沉浸式的特点。短视频又短又快的传播形式,恰是互联网对传播内容碎片化要求的体现;以趣缘聚类组织的垂直内容,暗合场景式传播的要求;视频制作技术的进步,成为沉浸式的视听体验的技术支持。由此可以窥见未来电影的发展图景,即更短的电影时长和镜头长度、依大数据算法决策的电影制作以及仿真的沉浸式的视听体验。     

Some Results on Modeling Biological Sequences and Web Navigation with a Semi Markov Chain

In the article, the entrance probabilities and the probability distribution of the number of transitions to a state are studied to provide some answers to questions related to state occupancies for the semi Markov model. Biological sequences and Web navigation are two cases that initially seem to be different but to a certain extent they do have similarities. Two main aspects of word occurrences in biological sequences are: (a) where do they occur and (b) how many times do they occur. In Web navigation the similar questions are (a) when a node is visited and (b) how many times a node is visited. So, the theoretical results of this study are applied to model these two cases and derive distributions of word location or node occurrence and frequency of occurrences. Rewards/costs are included in the Web navigation model and analytic forms for the means, variances, and moments of total interval rewards/costs are provided.     

Time series analysis for repeated surveys

Estimation of a characteristic based on surveys repeated at regular intervals is considered. A state space formulation is given for the problem and the Kalman Filter is used to obtain an estimate and its variance. Some examples are also given to illustrate the methodology.     

Enriching Surveys with Supplementary Data and its Application to Studying Wage Regression

We consider the problem of supplementing survey data with additional information from a population. The framework we use is very general; examples are missing data problems, measurement error models and combining data from multiple surveys. We do not require the survey data to be a simple random sample of the population of interest. The key assumption we make is that there exists a set of common variables between the survey and the supplementary data. Thus, the supplementary data serve the dual role of providing adjustments to the survey data for model consistencies and also enriching the survey data for improved efficiency. We propose a semi‐parametric approach using empirical likelihood to combine data from the two sources. The method possesses favourable large and moderate sample properties. We use the method to investigate wage regression using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth Study.     

Bootstrapping mean‐squared errors of robust small‐area estimators: Application to the method‐of‐payments surveys data

This paper proposes a new bootstrap procedure for mean‐squared errors of robust small‐area estimators. We formally prove the asymptotic validity of the proposed bootstrap method and examine its finite‐sample performance through Monte Carlo simulations. The results show that our procedure performs well and competes with existing ones. We also provide an application to the estimation of the total volume and value of cash, debit card, and credit card transactions in Canada as well as in its provinces and subgroups of households. In particular, we found that there is a significant average annual decline rate of 3.1% in the volume of cash transactions and that this decline is relatively higher among high‐income households living in heavily populated provinces. Our bootstrap estimator also provides indicators of quality useful in selecting the best small‐area predictor among several alternatives in practice.     

The performativity of surveys: Teenagers’ meaning-making of the 'Health Behavior in School-aged Children Survey' in Sweden

The Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children survey contains scales intended to measure life satisfaction, mental health problems and socioeconomic status. This article takes inspiration from science and technology studies and analyse the survey as performative. It also examines subjective meaning-making through an analysis of interviews with 15-year-old teenagers. It shows how the survey enacts the subject position of an accountable teenager and how teenagers experience the survey as sending a message about how one should live. While some teenagers experience this as positive, others narrate feelings of shame. This could be interpreted as a way for them to be accountable for themselves.     

Using the End‐User Computing Satisfaction (EUCS) Instrument to Measure Satisfaction with a Web Site

The purpose of this study is to revise and revalidate the End‐User Computing Satisfaction (EUCS) instrument to measure satisfaction with a Web site from a usability perspective. This study is especially important given the increased significance of the Web and the uniqueness of the Web as a computing environment. A total of 176 students participated in a lab simulation that involved a usability evaluation of the Lands' End Web site ( http://www.landsend.com ). Students were asked to complete a set of tasks, record their answers, and then complete the EUCS instrument. Confirmatory factor analysis and invariance analyses were conducted to test the reliability, validity, and generalizability of the revised EUCS. The results show that the EUCS is a valid and robust instrument in the Web environment but that one of the subfactors, timeliness, will need further refinement in the future. Usability practitioners can use the EUCS to measure end‐user satisfaction with a Web site and use the feedback for improving Web‐site design. We describe a case study of an actual usability application that utilized the revised EUCS effectively to support the design of building supply Web sites involving two types of end users, homeowners and contractors. We also propose a typology that researchers can use as a starting point to judge when it is necessary to revalidate an instrument like the EUCS. Finally, we discuss the limitations of our study and present avenues for future research.     

Time use surveys,social practice theory,and activity connections

Social practice theory (SPT) represents a growing body of research that takes the ‘doings and sayings’ (social practices) of everyday life as its core unit of enquiry. Time use surveys (TUS) represent a substantial source of micro-data regarding how activities are performed across the 24-h day. Given their apparent complementarities, we ask why TUS have not been utilised more extensively within SPT-inspired research. We advance two contentions: (1) ontological tensions obscure the relevance of TUS data in addressing core SPT research questions, and (2) SPT concepts do not readily translate for application in TUS analysis. In response, we operationalise Schatzki's (2019) concepts of activity events and chains to explore types and forms of temporal activity connection. Using TUS data we examine three activity events: sleeping, reading, and eating. Two types of temporal activity connection (sequence and synchronisation) are identified, together with four forms of connectivity (degrees of uniformity/diversity, sequential directionality, time-varying connections, and symmetrical/asymmetrical relationships). While practices cannot be reduced to activity connections, we argue that this analytical approach offers a systematic basis for examining the ways in which activities combine to underpin the organisation of social practices. Further analysis to compare activity connections across practices, between different groups of practitioners, and over time would offer a valuable resource to empirically examine claims regarding core processes of societal change. We further contend that SPT approaches offer insights for time use research by providing a framework capable of recognising that activities are dynamic and variable rather than homogeneous and stable categories.