scholarly journals Research Ready Data Lakes: Protecting Privacy in Relatable Datasets

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert McMillan ◽  
Maggie Reeves
Keyword(s):  
Policy Research ◽  
Relationship Building ◽  
Data Availability ◽  
Security And Privacy ◽  
Easy Access ◽  
Multiple Sources ◽  
Sensitive Data ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Level Data ◽  
Security Standards

Background with rationaleThe Georgia Policy Labs’ mission is to improve outcomes for children and families by producing rigorous research with long-term government partners. A key component of this model is having secure access to research-ready, individual level data from multiple sources to answer government agencies’ questions within policy windows. Obtaining sensitive data from our partners requires significant relationship building, demonstrations of value, and assurances of our ability to mitigate all security and privacy concerns. Objectives Securely transfer and de-identify disparate individual level datasets with personally identifiable information from public entities. Clean data and store in a pristine data lake, made available for fast turn-around research. Ensure individual records can be matched across disparate organizations’ datasets. ApproachOur practices, infrastructure, data sharing agreements and security are built to support the intersection of data availability for researchers and security standards that give our partners ease. We highlight two solutions addressing security concerns while supporting our researchers, which can be used by other researchers using sensitive data. First, we discuss our multiple tiers of transfer and access that remove risk from identifiable data. Second, we share the double hash solution created for a partner who was not willing to share PII. We share the source code for our SHA3-512 double hash solution, which allows for matching of records across disparate datasets without receiving PII sensitive elements. ResultsWe created reliable matching values without the need for the actual social security numbers or other PII values on our side, enabling a large school district to share its student-level data with us. ConclusionThe balance of security and easy access for researchers is a common area of friction. Our security set-up and hashing solution allows others to remove this barrier for applied policy research.

Proxy-3S

2022 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 0-0
Keyword(s):  
Private Information ◽  
Secure Communication ◽  
Mobile Cloud Computing ◽  
Security And Privacy ◽  
Security Policies ◽  
Sensitive Data ◽  
Good Efficiency ◽  
Distributed Application ◽  
Level Data ◽  
High Level

Virtualization plays a key role in the area of Mobile Cloud Computing (MCC). In MCC, the protection of distributed VMs and mobile users’ sensitive data, in terms of security and privacy, is highly required. This paper presents a novel cloud proxy known as Three Policies Secure Cloud Proxy (Proxy-3S) that combines three security policies: VM users’ access control, VMs’ secure allocation and VMs’ secure communication. The proposed approach aims to keep the distributed VMs safe in different servers on the cloud. It enhances the access authorization to permit intensive distributed application tasks on the cloud or mobile devices while processing and communicating private information between VMs. Furthermore, an algorithm that enables secure communication among distributed VMs and protection of sensitive data in VMs on the cloud is proposed. Several experiments were conducted using a real-world healthcare distributed application. The experiments achieved promising results for high-level data protection and good efficiency rating compared to existing works.

scholarly journals Secularism and Fertility Worldwide

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 237802312110313
Author(s):  
Landon Schnabel
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Values ◽  
Negative Relationship ◽  
Fertility Behavior ◽  
World Population ◽  
Fertility Rates ◽  
Multiple Sources ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Country Level ◽  
Level Data ◽  
The World

This study proposes and explores a new fertility determinant: societal secularism. Using country-level data from multiple sources ( n = 181) and multilevel data from 58 countries in the World Values Survey ( n = 83,301), the author documents a strong negative relationship between societal secularism and both country-level fertility rates and individual-level fertility behavior. Secularism, even in small amounts, is associated with population stagnation or even decline absent substantial immigration, whereas highly religious countries have higher fertility rates that promote population growth. This country-level pattern is driven by more than aggregate lower fertility of secular individuals. In fact, societal secularism is a better predictor of highly religious individuals’ fertility behavior than that of secular individuals, and this pattern is largely a function of cultural values related to gender, reproduction, and autonomy in secular societies. Beyond their importance for the religious composition of the world population, the patterns presented in this study are relevant to key fertility theories and could help account for below-replacement fertility.

scholarly journals Determinants of Indefinite Contracts in Europe: The Role of Unemployment

2016 ◽  
Vol 15 (6) ◽  
pp. 794-838 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucio Baccaro ◽  
Rüya Gökhan Koçer ◽  
Jorge Galindo ◽  
Valeria Pulignano
Keyword(s):  
Union Density ◽  
Employment Protection ◽  
Multiple Sources ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Country Level ◽  
Mediterranean Countries ◽  
Level Data ◽  
European Working ◽  
Negative Effect ◽  
Protection Legislation

Using individual-level data from the 2010 wave of the European Working Conditions Survey (ewcs), and country-level data on unemployment, employment protection legislation and union density for 21 European countries, this paper provides a comprehensive multi-level analysis of the determinants of indefinite employment contracts. The authors find that workers’ autonomy on the job, the intensity of computer use, and the presence of general and specific skills are associated with greater contract security. Perhaps more importantly, the authors find a strong negative effect of unemployment, particularly on workers cumulating multiple sources of labor market vulnerability, such as young age, low skill, low autonomy, and immigrant status, especially but not exclusively in the Mediterranean countries most affected by the crisis.

scholarly journals Determinants of institutional trust: the role of cultural context

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Anneli Kaasa ◽  
Luca Andriani
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Context ◽  
European Social Survey ◽  
Cultural Dimensions ◽  
Institutional Trust ◽  
Multilevel Regression ◽  
Multiple Sources ◽  
Large Power ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Cultural Aspects ◽  
Level Data

Abstract We examine the cultural context for individual's trust in public institutions. To shed some light on possible cultural explanations from a more comparative perspective and cover a wider set of cultural aspects, we use indicators of cultural dimensions by Kaasa et al. (2014) based on Hofstede's (1980) approach. Multilevel regression analysis is conducted with individual-level data from two waves of the European Social Survey (2008, 2010) and regional-level data from multiple sources. Confirmatory factor analysis is used to construct the indicators of social and institutional trust and corruption. Our results suggest that individuals tend to trust institutions less in regions with large power distance. Hence, an important key for governments being more successful in achieving their aims seems to be related to improving the sense of participation and civic responsibility.

scholarly journals The changing face of Australian data reforms: Impact on pharmacoepidemiology research

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Juliana De Oliveira Costa ◽  
Claudia Bruno ◽  
Andrea L Schaffer ◽  
Smriti Raichand ◽  
Emily A Karanges ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Population Health ◽  
Health Research ◽  
Research Capacity ◽  
Population Based ◽  
Data Availability ◽  
State Legislation ◽  
Privacy Concerns ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Level Data ◽  
Study Population

ObjectiveA wealth of data is generated through Australia’s universal health care arrangements. However, use of these data has been hampered by different federal and state legislation, privacy concerns and challenges in linking data across jurisdictions. A series of data reforms have been touted to increase population health research capacity in Australia, including pharmacoepidemiology research. Here we catalogued research leveraging Australia’s Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) data (2014–2018) and discussed these outputs in the context of previously implemented and new data reforms. MethodsWe conducted a systematic review of population-based studies using PBS dispensing claims. Independent reviewers screened abstracts of 4,996 articles and 310 full-text manuscripts. We characterised publications according to study population, analytical approach, data sources used, aims and medicines focus. ResultsWe identified 180 studies; 133 used individual-level data, 70 linked PBS dispensing claims with other health data (66 across jurisdictions). Studies using individual-level data focussed on Australians receiving government benefits (87 studies) rather than all PBS-eligible persons. 63 studies examined clinician or patient practices and 33 examined exposure-outcome relationships (27 evaluated medicines safety, 6 evaluated effectiveness). Medicines acting on the nervous and cardiovascular system account for the greatest volume of PBS medicines dispensed and were the most commonly studied (67 and 40 studies, respectively). Antineoplastic and immunomodulating agents account for approximately one third of PBS expenditure but represented only 10% of studies in this review. ConclusionsThe studies in this review represent more than a third of all population-based pharmacoepidemiology research published in the last three decades in Australia. Recent data reforms have contributed to this escalating output. However, studies are concentrated among specific subpopulations and medicines classes, and there remains a limited understanding of population benefits and harms derived from medicines use. The current draft Data Availability and Transparency legislation should further bolster efforts in population health research.

scholarly journals Secularism and Fertility Worldwide

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Landon Schnabel
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Values ◽  
Negative Relationship ◽  
Fertility Behavior ◽  
World Population ◽  
Fertility Rates ◽  
Multiple Sources ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Country Level ◽  
Level Data ◽  
The World

This study proposes and explores a new fertility determinant: societal secularism. Using country-level data from multiple sources (N=181) and multilevel data from 58 countries in the World Values Survey (N=83,301), I document a strong negative relationship between societal secularism and both country-level fertility rates and individual-level fertility behavior. Secularism, even in small amounts, is associated with population stagnation or even decline, whereas highly religious countries have higher fertility rates that promote population growth. This country-level pattern is driven by more than aggregate lower fertility of secular individuals. In fact, societal secularism is a better predictor of highly religious individuals’ fertility behavior than that of secular individuals, and this pattern is largely a function of cultural values related to gender, reproduction, and autonomy in secular societies. Beyond their importance for the religious composition of the world population, the patterns presented in this study are relevant to key fertility theories and could help account for below-replacement fertility.

scholarly journals Review of Associations between Built Environment Characteristics and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 Infection Risk

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (14) ◽  
pp. 7561
Author(s):  
Jingjing Wang ◽  
Xueying Wu ◽  
Ruoyu Wang ◽  
Dongsheng He ◽  
Dongying Li ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome ◽  
Built Environment ◽  
Longitudinal Research ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Infection Risk ◽  
Design Guidelines ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Transit Accessibility ◽  
Level Data ◽  
Transmission Pathways

The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic has stimulated intensive research interest in its transmission pathways and infection factors, e.g., socioeconomic and demographic characteristics, climatology, baseline health conditions or pre-existing diseases, and government policies. Meanwhile, some empirical studies suggested that built environment attributes may be associated with the transmission mechanism and infection risk of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). However, no review has been conducted to explore the effect of built environment characteristics on the infection risk. This research gap prevents government officials and urban planners from creating effective urban design guidelines to contain SARS-CoV-2 infections and face future pandemic challenges. This review summarizes evidence from 25 empirical studies and provides an overview of the effect of built environment on SARS-CoV-2 infection risk. Virus infection risk was positively associated with the density of commercial facilities, roads, and schools and with public transit accessibility, whereas it was negatively associated with the availability of green spaces. This review recommends several directions for future studies, namely using longitudinal research design and individual-level data, considering multilevel factors and extending to diversified geographic areas.

scholarly journals The Role of Snack Choices, Body Weight Stereotypes and Smoking Behavior in Assessing Risk Factors for Adolescent Overweight and Obesity

Foods ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 557
Author(s):  
Elena Raptou
Keyword(s):  
Body Weight ◽  
Smoking Behavior ◽  
Negative Influence ◽  
Overweight And Obesity ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Level Data ◽  
Prevention Interventions ◽  
Frequent Consumption ◽  
Adolescent Overweight ◽  
Relationship Of

This study investigated the relationship of behavioral factors, such as snack choices, obesity stereotypes and smoking with adolescents’ body weight. Individual-level data for 1254 Greek youths were selected via a formal questionnaire. Snack choices seem to be gender specific with girls showing a stronger preference for healthier snacks. Frequent consumption of high-calorie and more filling snacks was found to increase Body Mass Index (BMI) in both genders. Fruit/vegetable snacks were associated with lower body weight in females, whereas cereal/nut snacks had a negative influence in males’ BMI. The majority of participants expressed anti-fat attitudes and more boys than girls assigned positive attributes to lean peers. The endorsement of the thin-ideal was positively associated with the BMI of both adolescent boys and girls. This study also revealed that neglecting potential endogeneity issues can lead to biased estimates of smoking. Gender may be a crucial moderator of smoking–BMI relationships. Male smokers presented a higher obesity risk, whereas female smokers were more likely to be underweight. Nutrition professionals should pay attention to increase the acceptance of healthy snack options. Gender differences in the influence of weight stereotypes and smoking on BMI should be considered in order to enhance the efficacy of obesity prevention interventions.

When Marriage Gets Hard: Intra-Coalition Conflict and Electoral Accountability

2021 ◽  
pp. 001041402110243
Author(s):  
Carolina Plescia ◽  
Sylvia Kritzinger
Keyword(s):  
Economic Performance ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Economic Evaluations ◽  
Responsibility Attribution ◽  
Electoral Accountability ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Coalition Governments ◽  
Level Data ◽  
European Election ◽  
Election Studies

Combining individual-level with event-level data across 25 European countries and three sets of European Election Studies, this study examines the effect of conflict between parties in coalition government on electoral accountability and responsibility attribution. We find that conflict increases punishment for poor economic performance precisely because it helps clarify to voters parties’ actions and responsibilities while in office. The results indicate that under conditions of conflict, the punishment is equal for all coalition partners when they share responsibility for poor economic performance. When there is no conflict within a government, the effect of poor economic evaluations on vote choice is rather low, with slightly more punishment targeted to the prime minister’s party. These findings have important implications for our understanding of electoral accountability and political representation in coalition governments.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document