A Dual-Source Indicator of Consumer Confidence

The objective of this paper is to improve the U.S. leading confidence indicator by combining its amended version with the Conference Board's equally well known Consumer Expectation Index . The resulting dual-source indicator provides a factorial structure in which survey items are nested. The results presented here show that this structure is not well fit by a generalized linear model. Hence a nonlinear model is invoked which provides differential logistic slopes for the survey items. This latter model is based on the work of McCullagh (1980). The effects estimated in this nonlinear structure provide the United States with a potential leading indicator that is richer and more informative than its current Index of Consumer Expectations . The suggested indicator prevents the mixed signals and inconsistencies that can occur when separately reporting results from our two most prominent sources of consumer perception.     

Chronic sorrow: the experience of parents with children who are developmentally disabled.

1. Adaptation mechanisms differ between mothers and fathers of developmentally disabled children. 2. Mothers' emotions radiate into chronic sorrow while fathers' reactions move toward resignation. 3. Patterns of grief and sadness reemerge and are most often precipitated by a health care crisis in women and comparison with social norms in fathers.     

Monitoring antitobacco sentiment among community leaders

Two public health objectives, one methodological and the other substantive, are realized in the present study. First, average survey ratings are replaced by negated mean cumulative logits (MCLs), which have the advantage of interitem commensuration. Second, these negated MCLs improve the analysis of two Florida tobacco control surveys of community leaders. Because of their common logit metric, negated MCLs for different item types are compared on their expressed antitobacco sentiment. They are also averaged to construct a precise indicator of overall sentiment. These results show that in 1998 and 1999, community leaders were most averse to selling to minors, kids buying cigarettes, and restaurant and workplace smoking. The latter aversion anticipated voters' overwhelming support of the 2002 Florida constitutional amendment prohibiting smoking in restaurants and workplaces. The authors hope that this analysis for antitobacco programs will improve other substance-abuse monitoring with surveys whose items are yet unwritten.     

Measuring subjective social indicators

A logistic response model is proposed for measuring social indicators based upon survey rating scales. A close fit of the model to national life-quality data is demonstrated. Moreover, the model is constrained so as to provide an explicit formulation for item averaging with respect to group aggregates. This item redundancy provides measures for social constructs in a manner analogous to traditional procedures at the individual level of measurement. Further applications of this principle to opinion and mental health monitoring are discussed.