Poor Health Reporting? Using Vignettes to Recover the Health Gradient by Wealth

In spite of the well-known wide disparities in wealth and in objective measures of health like mortality in countries like South Africa, health inequality by wealth in self-reported health measures appears to be nearly non-existent. We test and correct for reporting heterogeneity in sixteen domains of self-assessed health by wealth and race among elderly South Africans using anchoring vignettes. We find that significant reporting differences between high and low wealth groups lead to severe underestimation of the health-wealth gap: poorer individuals rate the same health relatively higher than richer. Using hierarchical ordered probit (HOPIT) modeling, we show that a significant and substantial health disadvantage of the poor emerges after correction. We also address the question whether and how health inequality and reporting heterogeneity are confounded by race. We find that within race groups - especially among Blacks but also among Whites - reporting heterogeneity leads to the underestimation of the health inequalities between richest and poorest. Finally, we show that the apparent Black (vs White) health disadvantage within the top wealth quintile disappears once we correct for reporting tendencies. All in all, our findings suggest that reporting tendencies are an important source of bias in the measurement of health disparities and that anchoring vignettes and HOPIT models can play a role in correcting for these biases

Práticas de técnica vocal e respiratória aplicadas ao canto coral nas escolas do 1º ciclo do E. B.: um estudo sobre os efeitos da técnica vocal e respiratória como (um dos) factor(es) de valorização "do canto em conjunto" no contexto de sala de aula

Mestrado em Ensino de Educação Musical no Ensino BásicoEste trabalho apresenta como tema aglutinador as «práticas de técnica vocal e respiratória (PRATEVOR) aplicadas ao canto coral nas escolas do 1º ciclo do E.B.». Tendo como contexto de aplicação a especificidade curricular do 1º ciclo do E.B. na Região Autónoma da Madeira, este estudo desenvolve-se a partir do questionamento sobre os efeitos da técnica vocal e respiratória adaptada às crianças em contexto escolar, como factor de valorização do canto em conjunto exercido a partir da sala de aula, no ensino generalista. Outras variáveis serão despoletadas pela pesquisa, também como condicionantes a considerar, perspectivando, na sua complementaridade, a qualidade do canto coral escolar. Neste âmbito, foi realizado um projecto educativo onde alunos do 4º ano, no decurso de 1 período lectivo, montaram e apresentaram publicamente um auto-de-Natal, constituído por 12 temas cantados polifonicamente, aplicando competências adquiridas e desenvolvidas através do treino regular das PRATEVOR nas aulas. Paralelamente foi desenvolvido um projecto de investigação constituído por 2 estudos comparativos do tipo Investigação-Acção. Ao longo de 4 fases processuais, foram realizados diferentes questionários envolvendo especialistas em canto infantil, professores de canto coral escolar e alunos. Consubstanciado numa vasta revisão da literatura, enriquecida por uma justificada incursão histórica sobre o tema, os resultados do estudo apontam para diversas conclusões que, pela sua previsível aplicabilidade em contexto educativo, pretende-se que constituam indicadores que possam contribuir para a melhoraria da prática musical cantada, reflectida e reconstruída a partir da escola actual

The heterogeneous thresholds ordered response model: identification and inference

Although surveys routinely ask respondents to evaluate various aspects of their life on an ordered scale, there is concern about interpersonal comparability of these self-assessments. Statistically, the problem is one of identification in ordered response models with heterogeneous thresholds. As a solution to the identification problem, King et al. (2004) proposed using anchoring vignettes, namely brief descriptions of hypothetical people or situations that survey respondents are asked to evaluate on the same scale they use to rate their own situation. While vignettes have been introduced in several social surveys and are increasingly employed in a variety of fields, reliability of this approach hinges crucially on the validity of the assumptions of response consistency and vignette equivalence. This paper proposes a joint test of these key assumptions based on the fact that the underlying statistical model is overidentified if the two assumptions hold. Monte Carlo results show that the proposed test has good size and power properties in finite samples. We apply our test to self-assessment of pain using data from the first wave of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe. We find that, when using only one of the three available vignettes, or when the test is carried out separately by subgroups of respondents, the overidentifying restrictions are less likely to be rejected

Slipping Anchor?: Testing the Vignettes Approach to Identification and Correction of Reporting Heterogeneity

We propose tests of the two assumptions under which anchoring vignettes identify heterogeneity in reporting of categorical evaluations. Systematic variation in the perceived difference between any two vignette states is sufficient to reject vignette equivalence. Response consistency—the respondent uses the same response scale to evaluate the vignette and herself—is testable given sufficiently comprehensive objective indicators that independently identify response scales. Both assumptions are rejected for reporting of cognitive and physical functioning in a sample of older English individuals, although a weaker test resting on less stringent assumptions does not reject response consistency for cognition

Work, Inequality and For Own Consumption in Portugal

Portugal, long a country of emigration, has seen the number of immigrants outstrip the number of emigrants since the mid-1990s. Per capita GDP has been on the constant rise since the country entered the European Union, even though it was still the poorest Member State in 2000. The proportion of over-60s still at work is the highest in the Europe of 15. The unemployment rate plunged to one of the lowest European levels in 2000. Portugal is also the most inegalitarian country in terms of income distribution. Families whose head works in the service sector are less exposed to poverty in terms of living conditions than farm, fishing and industrial workers. For own consumption, when the housing situation so allows, provides greater flexibility of budgetary management and makes those with access to it less pessimistic in terms of subjective poverty.Multiple Dimensions of Poverty, Retirement, Portugal

Slipping anchor? Testing the vignettes approach to identification and correction of reporting heterogeneity

Anchoring vignettes are increasingly used to identify and correct heterogeneity in the reporting of health, work disability, life satisfaction, political efficacy, etc. with the aim of improving interpersonal comparability of subjective indicators of these constructs. The method relies on two assumptions: vignette equivalence – the vignette description is perceived by all to correspond to the same state; and, response consistency - individuals use the same response scales to rate the vignettes and their own situation. We propose tests of these assumptions. For vignette equivalence, we test a necessary condition of no systematic variation with observed characteristics in the perceived difference in states corresponding to any two vignettes. To test response consistency we rely on the assumption that objective indicators fully capture the covariation between the construct of interest and observed individual characteristics, and so offer an alternative way to identify response scales, which can then be compared with those identified from the vignettes. We also introduce a weaker test that is valid under a less stringent assumption. We apply these tests to cognitive functioning and mobility related health problems using data from the English Longitudinal Survey of Ageing. Response consistency is rejected for both health domains according to the first test, but the weaker test does not reject for cognitive functioning. The necessary condition for vignette equivalence is rejected for both health domains. These results cast some doubt on the validity of the vignettes approach, at least as applied to these health domains

Who can predict their own Demise? Accuracy of Longevity Expectations by Education and Cognition

Biased longevity expectations will lead to suboptimal decisions regarding saving, retirement, annuitization and health, with consequences for wellbeing in old age. Systematic differences in the accuracy of longevity expectations may partly explain heterogeneity in economic behaviour by education and cognitive functioning. Analysis of eight waves of the US Health and Retirement Study reveals that individuals with lower levels of education and cognitive functioning report survival probabilities that are less accurate in predicting their in-sample mortality. There is little evidence that the gradients in the veracity of expectations are due to the less educated and cognitively able responding less to changes in objective mortality risks. However, high school dropouts and the least cognitively able report survival probabilities that are less stable and display greater un explained variability. These disadvantaged groups appear to be less confident in their longevity beliefs, which is justified given that their expectations are less accurate