scholarly journals Commentary: Using potential outcomes causal methods to assess whether reductions in PM2.5 result in decreased mortality

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 100052
Author(s):  
Julie E. Goodman ◽  
Wenchao Li ◽  
Louis Anthony Cox
Keyword(s):  
Potential Outcomes

Foraging extends beyond food: Hoarding of mental energy and information seeking in response to uncertainty

2019 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica L. Alquist ◽  
Roy F. Baumeister
Keyword(s):  
Information Seeking ◽  
Potential Outcomes ◽  
Food Hoarding

AbstractWhen an environment is uncertain, humans and other animals benefit from preparing for and attempting to predict potential outcomes. People respond to uncertainty both by conserving mental energy on tasks unrelated to the source of the uncertainty and by increasing their attentiveness to information related to the uncertainty. This mental hoarding and foraging allow people to prepare in uncertain situations.

Assessing Potential Outcomes Mediation in HIV Interventions

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heather L. Smyth ◽  
Eileen V. Pitpitan ◽  
David P. MacKinnon ◽  
Robert E. Booth
Keyword(s):  
Potential Outcomes ◽  
Hiv Interventions

Evaluation of a personal professional mentor scheme for newly qualified nurses

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (11) ◽  
pp. 672-676
Author(s):  
Charlotte Austin ◽  
Yvonne Halpin
Keyword(s):  
Thematic Analysis ◽  
Structured Interview ◽  
Potential Outcomes ◽  
Experienced Nurses ◽  
Support Strategies ◽  
Supportive Role ◽  
New Type ◽  
Experienced Nurse ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Pastoral Support

Background: Newly qualified nurses are known to experience a range of feelings and fears in the first transitional 12 months post-qualifying, with absence and turnover among potential outcomes. Aim: To evaluate the personal professional mentor role and scheme, a new pastoral support initiative, from the perspective of participating newly qualified nurses. Methods: Newly qualified paediatric nurses (n=10), who had been assigned a personal professional mentor (an experienced nurse who worked elsewhere in their employing NHS Trust), completed a semi-structured interview. The data were analysed using thematic analysis. Findings: The personal professional mentor counteracted some aspects of transition isolation for the newly qualified nurses. They were an independent, accessible, experienced confidant and a welcome new supportive role. Conclusion: Pairing experienced nurses with newly qualified nurses provided a new type of workplace support during transition. Inexpensive to set up and run, it is an easy addition to any portfolio of support strategies.

scholarly journals Using multiple imputation to classify potential outcomes subgroups

2021 ◽  
pp. 096228022110028
Author(s):  
Yun Li ◽  
Irina Bondarenko ◽  
Michael R Elliott ◽  
Timothy P Hofer ◽  
Jeremy MG Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Multiple Imputation ◽  
Statistical Methods ◽  
The United States ◽  
Treatment Selection ◽  
Potential Outcomes ◽  
Model Framework ◽  
Medical Tests ◽  
Gene Assay ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Test Result

With medical tests becoming increasingly available, concerns about over-testing, over-treatment and health care cost dramatically increase. Hence, it is important to understand the influence of testing on treatment selection in general practice. Most statistical methods focus on average effects of testing on treatment decisions. However, this may be ill-advised, particularly for patient subgroups that tend not to benefit from such tests. Furthermore, missing data are common, representing large and often unaddressed threats to the validity of most statistical methods. Finally, it is often desirable to conduct analyses that can be interpreted causally. Using the Rubin Causal Model framework, we propose to classify patients into four potential outcomes subgroups, defined by whether or not a patient’s treatment selection is changed by the test result and by the direction of how the test result changes treatment selection. This subgroup classification naturally captures the differential influence of medical testing on treatment selections for different patients, which can suggest targets to improve the utilization of medical tests. We can then examine patient characteristics associated with patient potential outcomes subgroup memberships. We used multiple imputation methods to simultaneously impute the missing potential outcomes as well as regular missing values. This approach can also provide estimates of many traditional causal quantities of interest. We find that explicitly incorporating causal inference assumptions into the multiple imputation process can improve the precision for some causal estimates of interest. We also find that bias can occur when the potential outcomes conditional independence assumption is violated; sensitivity analyses are proposed to assess the impact of this violation. We applied the proposed methods to examine the influence of 21-gene assay, the most commonly used genomic test in the United States, on chemotherapy selection among breast cancer patients.

Causal mediation in developmental science: A primer

2021 ◽  
pp. 016502542098164
Author(s):  
Jorge Cuartas ◽  
Dana Charles McCoy
Keyword(s):  
Best Practices ◽  
Mediation Analysis ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Developmental Theory ◽  
Potential Outcomes ◽  
Mediation Effects ◽  
Causal Mediation ◽  
Developmental Science ◽  
Potential Outcomes Framework

Mediation has played a critical role in developmental theory and research. Yet, developmentalists rarely discuss the methodological challenges of establishing causality in mediation analysis or potential strategies to improve the identification of causal mediation effects. In this article, we discuss the potential outcomes framework from statistics as a means for highlighting several fundamental challenges of establishing causality in mediation analysis, including the difficulty of meeting the key assumption of sequential ignorability, even in experimental studies. We argue that this framework—which, although commonplace in other fields, has not yet been taken up in developmental science—can inform solutions to these challenges. Based on the framework, we offer a series of recommendations for improving causal inference in mediation analysis, including an overview of best practices in both study design and analysis, as well as resources for conducting analysis. In doing so, our overall objective in this article is to support the use of rigorous methods for understanding questions of mechanism in developmental science.

Potential outcomes of work integration social enterprises for people who are homeless, at risk of homelessness, or transitioning out of homelessness

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Barton ◽  
Hayley Porter ◽  
Susanne Murphy ◽  
Rosemary Lysaght
Keyword(s):  
At Risk ◽  
Financial Stability ◽  
Social Enterprise ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Target Population ◽  
Social Enterprises ◽  
Potential Outcomes ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Work Integration

Purpose Social enterprise has the potential to serve as a mechanism of social and economic opportunity for persons experiencing homelessness. This paper aims to identify potential outcomes of work integration social enterprises (WISEs) for people who are homeless, at risk of homelessness, or transitioning out of homelessness. Design/methodology/approach Searches of 14 databases were completed using keywords and subject headings pertaining to homelessness, social enterprise and employment, respectively. These searches were then combined to identify literature concerning WISEs with homeless populations. The initial search yielded 784 unique articles. Through screening, 29 articles were selected and independently coded to establish themes. Findings The analysis identified the potential for WISEs to contribute positively to the lives of the target population in the areas of connection to the community, employment skill building, mental health, personal agency and empowerment, relationship-building, structure and time use, financial stability and housing. There were less positive and mixed findings regarding substance use, crime/delinquency, physical health and transition to mainstream employment. Future research should further explore causal relationships between WISE approaches and strategies and their potential implications for persons emerging from homelessness. Originality/value Prior to this research, there have not been any recent publications that synthesize the existing body of literature to evaluate the potential outcomes of WISE participation for homeless populations. This paper lays the groundwork for future empirical studies.

Covid-19 Pandemic and the World Order

2021 ◽  
pp. 8-24
Author(s):  
Elena Chebankova ◽  
Petr Dutkiewicz
Keyword(s):  
Political System ◽  
Moral Panic ◽  
World Order ◽  
Potential Outcomes ◽  
Capitalist System ◽  
The Past ◽  
Power Resources ◽  
Ideological Struggle ◽  
The World ◽  
Media Manipulation

This paper examines the origins, nature, and potential outcomes of the global crisis induced by the Covid-19 pandemic. The authors argue that the crisis has been animated by the two most important groups of factors that have been simmering in the world‘s economic and political system during the past six decades and have been accelerated by the pandemic. First, the dynamic of the Covid-19 crisis illuminated the existing challenges of the contemporary capitalist system, which is generally legitimated via the instruments of moral panic and media manipulation. Each consecutive crisis of capitalism ends with the redistribution of power resources to some groups of participants. Second, the Covid-19 crisis has been taking place within the conditions of a systemic and ideological struggle between two global elite factions that harbour drastically different approaches to the changing world order and have different politico-economic goals and intentions. The authors will argue that the crisis will not change the world drastically, yet it will amplify these ongoing tensions, illuminate them to many general observers, and deepen the already-existing systemic instability.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document