scholarly journals Why Does the Importance of Education for Health Differ across the United States?

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 237802311989954
Author(s):  
Blakelee R. Kemp ◽  
Jennifer Karas Montez

The positive association between educational attainment and adult health (“the gradient”) is stronger in some areas of the United States than in others. Explanations for the geographic pattern have not been rigorously investigated. Grounded in a contextual and life-course perspective, the aim of this study is to assess childhood circumstances (e.g., childhood health, compulsory schooling laws) and adult circumstances (e.g., wealth, lifestyles, economic policies) as potential explanations. Using data on U.S.-born adults aged 50 to 59 years at baseline ( n = 13,095) and followed for up to 16 years across the 1998 to 2014 waves of the Health and Retirement Study, the authors examined how and why educational gradients in morbidity, functioning, and mortality vary across nine U.S. regions. The findings indicate that the gradient is stronger in some areas than others partly because of geographic differences in childhood socioeconomic conditions and health, but mostly because of geographic differences in adult circumstances such as wealth, lifestyles, and economic and tobacco policies.

1979 ◽  
Vol 73 (4) ◽  
pp. 1003-1011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert B. Albritton

Frances Fox Piven and Richard A. Cloward (1971, 1977) have argued that mass insurgency in the United States, occurring especially between 1964 and 1969, produced a series of responses by government, one of the most significant being massive expansion of welfare rolls. Using data on which they base their claim, this study examines the hypothesis that there is a positive association between social disorders and welfare caseload increases. The conclusion is that associations specified by Piven and Cloward are not supported by the data and a plausible rival hypothesis is offered to explain the massive increases in welfare caseloads.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (18) ◽  
pp. 7370
Author(s):  
Mostafa Saidur Rahim Khan ◽  
Naheed Rabbani ◽  
Yoshihiko Kadoya

Lack of investment in financial markets is one of the enduring puzzles in empirical finance. Although recent studies ascribe the lack of investment in stocks to financial literacy, the association between financial literacy and investment in financial markets remains inconclusive. We examine whether financial literacy is associated with investment in financial markets in the United States. We use investment in stocks, futures/options, investment trusts, corporate bonds, foreign currency deposits, and government bonds of foreign currency as a proxy for investment in financial markets. Using data from the Preference Parameter Study, a nationwide panel survey conducted by Osaka University of Japan, we provide evidence that financial literacy has a significantly positive association with investment in financial markets even after controlling for demographic, socioeconomic, and psychological factors. We check the robustness of our results by using an alternative proxy for investment in financial markets. Our study has far-reaching policy implications and we conclude by suggesting the introduction of financial literacy programs into the academic curriculum. Improving financial literacy could positively impact the mobilization of household funds and contribute to capital formation.


2018 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 237802311879595 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Upenieks ◽  
Steven L. Foy ◽  
Andrew Miles

Studies using data from the United States suggest religious organizational involvement is more beneficial for health than secular organizational involvement. Extending beyond the United States, we assess the relative impacts of religious and secular organizational involvement on self-rated health cross-nationally, accounting for national-level religious context. Analyses of data from 33 predominantly Christian countries from the 2005–2008 World Values Survey reveal that active membership in religious organizations is positively associated with self-rated health. This association’s magnitude is higher than the magnitude of associations between many memberships in secular organizations and health. The positive association between involvement in religious organization and self-rated health is moderated by national levels of religious pluralism such that positive associations are primarily found in nations high in religious diversity. These results replicated in a sample of 21 majority-Christian nations from the 2010–2014 World Values Survey.


2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 331-342 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas John Cooke ◽  
Ian Shuttleworth

It is widely presumed that information and communication technologies, or ICTs, enable migration in several ways; primarily by reducing the costs of migration. However, a reconsideration of the relationship between ICTs and migration suggests that ICTs may just as well hinder migration; primarily by reducing the costs of not moving.  Using data from the US Panel Study of Income Dynamics, models that control for sources of observed and unobserved heterogeneity indicate a strong negative effect of ICT use on inter-state migration within the United States. These results help to explain the long-term decline in internal migration within the United States.


Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (13) ◽  
pp. 4336
Author(s):  
Piervincenzo Rizzo ◽  
Alireza Enshaeian

Bridge health monitoring is increasingly relevant for the maintenance of existing structures or new structures with innovative concepts that require validation of design predictions. In the United States there are more than 600,000 highway bridges. Nearly half of them (46.4%) are rated as fair while about 1 out of 13 (7.6%) is rated in poor condition. As such, the United States is one of those countries in which bridge health monitoring systems are installed in order to complement conventional periodic nondestructive inspections. This paper reviews the challenges associated with bridge health monitoring related to the detection of specific bridge characteristics that may be indicators of anomalous behavior. The methods used to detect loss of stiffness, time-dependent and temperature-dependent deformations, fatigue, corrosion, and scour are discussed. Owing to the extent of the existing scientific literature, this review focuses on systems installed in U.S. bridges over the last 20 years. These are all major factors that contribute to long-term degradation of bridges. Issues related to wireless sensor drifts are discussed as well. The scope of the paper is to help newcomers, practitioners, and researchers at navigating the many methodologies that have been proposed and developed in order to identify damage using data collected from sensors installed in real structures.


2021 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-79
Author(s):  
Carmela Alcántara ◽  
Shakira F. Suglia ◽  
Irene Perez Ibarra ◽  
A. Louise Falzon ◽  
Elliot McCullough ◽  
...  

Science ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. eabh2939
Author(s):  
Justin Lessler ◽  
M. Kate Grabowski ◽  
Kyra H. Grantz ◽  
Elena Badillo-Goicoechea ◽  
C. Jessica E. Metcalf ◽  
...  

In-person schooling has proved contentious and difficult to study throughout the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Data from a massive online survey in the United States indicates an increased risk of COVID-19-related outcomes among respondents living with a child attending school in-person. School-based mitigation measures are associated with significant reductions in risk, particularly daily symptoms screens, teacher masking, and closure of extra-curricular activities. A positive association between in-person schooling and COVID-19 outcomes persists at low levels of mitigation, but when seven or more mitigation measures are reported, a significant relationship is no longer observed. Among teachers, working outside the home was associated with an increase in COVID-19-related outcomes, but this association is similar to other occupations (e.g., healthcare, office work). While in-person schooling is associated with household COVID-19 risk, this risk can likely be controlled with properly implemented school-based mitigation measures.


Author(s):  
Jay J. Xu ◽  
Jarvis T. Chen ◽  
Thomas R. Belin ◽  
Ronald S. Brookmeyer ◽  
Marc A. Suchard ◽  
...  

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) epidemic in the United States has disproportionately impacted communities of color across the country. Focusing on COVID-19-attributable mortality, we expand upon a national comparative analysis of years of potential life lost (YPLL) attributable to COVID-19 by race/ethnicity (Bassett et al., 2020), estimating percentages of total YPLL for non-Hispanic Whites, non-Hispanic Blacks, Hispanics, non-Hispanic Asians, and non-Hispanic American Indian or Alaska Natives, contrasting them with their respective percent population shares, as well as age-adjusted YPLL rate ratios—anchoring comparisons to non-Hispanic Whites—in each of 45 states and the District of Columbia using data from the National Center for Health Statistics as of 30 December 2020. Using a novel Monte Carlo simulation procedure to perform estimation, our results reveal substantial racial/ethnic disparities in COVID-19-attributable YPLL across states, with a prevailing pattern of non-Hispanic Blacks and Hispanics experiencing disproportionately high and non-Hispanic Whites experiencing disproportionately low COVID-19-attributable YPLL. Furthermore, estimated disparities are generally more pronounced when measuring mortality in terms of YPLL compared to death counts, reflecting the greater intensity of the disparities at younger ages. We also find substantial state-to-state variability in the magnitudes of the estimated racial/ethnic disparities, suggesting that they are driven in large part by social determinants of health whose degree of association with race/ethnicity varies by state.


2020 ◽  
pp. 002242942098252
Author(s):  
Justin J. West

The purpose of this study was to evaluate music teacher professional development (PD) practice and policy in the United States between 1993 and 2012. Using data from the nationally representative Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) spanning these 20 years, I examined music teacher PD participation by topic, intensity, relevance, and format; music teachers’ top PD priorities; and the reach of certain PD-supportive policies. I assessed these descriptive results against a set of broadly agreed-on criteria for “effective” PD: content specificity, relevance, voluntariness/autonomy, social interaction, and sustained duration. Findings revealed a mixed record. Commendable improvements in content-specific PD access were undercut by deficiencies in social interaction, voluntariness/autonomy, sustained duration, and relevance. School policy, as reported by teachers, was grossly inadequate, with only one of the nine PD-supportive measures appearing on SASS reaching a majority of teachers in any given survey year. Implications for policy, practice, and scholarship are presented.


2020 ◽  
pp. 096366252097856
Author(s):  
Matthew C. Nowlin

The use of technocratic decision-making, where policy decisions are made by elite experts, is an important aspect of policymaking in the United States. However, little work has examined public opinion about technocracy. Using data from a representative sample of the United States ( n = 1200), I explore differences in support for technocracy and the implications of that support for views about politically controversial energy sources and climate policies. Overall, I find that liberal Democrats, moderate/conservative Democrats, and moderate/liberal Republicans were more likely than conservative Republicans and moderate independents to support technocratic decision-making. In addition, I find that as support for technocracy increases, so does support for energy sources and climate policies; however, there are significant interaction effects across political beliefs.


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