Understanding Society Innovation Panel Wave 8: results from methodological experiments

This paper presents some preliminary findings from Wave 8 of the Innovation Panel (IP8) of Understanding Society: The UK Household Longitudinal Study. Understanding Society is a major panel survey in the UK. May 2015, the eighth wave of the Innovation Panel went into the field. IP8 used a mixed-mode design, using on-line interviews and face-to-face interviews. This paper describes the design of IP8, the experiments carried and the preliminary findings from early analysis of the data

Trajectories of Early Adolescent Loneliness: Implications for Physical Health and Sleep

The current study examines the relationship between prolonged loneliness, physical health, and sleep among young adolescents (10–13 years; N = 1214; 53% girls). Loneliness was measured at 10, 12 and 13 years of age along with parent-reported health and sleep outcomes. Using growth mixture modelling, 6 distinct trajectories were identified: ‘low increasing to high loneliness’ (n = 23, 2%), ‘high reducing loneliness’ (n = 28, 3%), ‘medium stable loneliness’ (n = 60, 5%), ‘medium reducing loneliness’ (n = 185, 15%), ‘low increasing to medium loneliness’ (n = 165, 14%), and ‘low stable loneliness’ (n = 743, 61%). Further analyses found non-significant differences between the loneliness trajectories and parent-report health and sleep outcomes including visits to health professionals, perceived general health, and sleep quality. The current study offers an important contribution to the literature on loneliness and health. Results show that the relationship may not be evident in early adolescence when parent reports of children’s health are used. The current study highlights the importance of informant choice when reporting health. The implications of the findings for future empirical work are discussed

Factors associated with self-rated health among migrant workers: results from a population-based cross-sectional study in Almaty, Kazakhstan

Objectives To determine factors associated with SRH among migrant workers in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Methods In 2007, 805 vendors were screened. Approximately half were eligible (n =450), defined as at least 18 years old, a worker/owner in a randomly selected stall, having traveled 2 + hours outside of Almaty within the past year, and being an internal/external migrant. 28 non-migrants were excluded, leaving 422 participants. Logistic regression was used to examine the relationship between SRH, mental health, and psychosocial problems. Results Approximately 46% reported having poor or fair SRH. Clinical depression (OR 0.859, 95% CI 0.342–2.154), alcohol problems (OR 1.169, 95% CI 0.527–2.593), and legal status (OR 0.995, 95% CI 0.806–1.229) were not significantly associated with SRH, nor was exposure to interpersonal violence among women (OR 1.554, 95% CI 0.703–3.435). After adjusting for key variables, only ethnicity and social support were found to be significantly protective against poor or fair SRH. Conclusions SRH was not a comprehensive health measure for these Central Asian migrant workers. More specific questions are needed to identify mental illness and interpersonal violence

How participants report their health status: cognitive interviews of self-rated health across race/ethnicity, gender, age, and educational attainment

Abstract Background Self-rated health (SRH) is widely used to measure subjective health. Yet it is unclear what underlies health ratings, with implications for understanding the validity of SRH overall and across sociodemographic characteristics. We analyze participants’ explanations of how they formulated their SRH answer in addition to which health factors they considered and examine group differences in these processes. Methods Cognitive interviews were conducted with 64 participants in a convenience quota sample crossing dimensions of race/ethnicity (white, Latino, black, American Indian), gender, age, and education. Participants rated their health then described their thoughts when answering SRH. We coded participants’ answers in an inductive, iterative, and systematic process from interview transcripts, developing analytic categories (i.e., themes) and subdimensions within. We examined whether the presence of each dimension of an analytic category varied across sociodemographic groups. Results Our qualitative analysis led to the identification and classification of various subdimensions of the following analytic categories: types of health factors mentioned, valence of health factors, temporality of health factors, conditional health statements, and descriptions and definitions of health. We found differences across groups in some types of health factors mentioned—corresponding, conflicting, or novel with respect to prior research. Furthermore, we also documented various processes through which respondents integrate seemingly disparate health factors to formulate an answer through valence and conditional health statements. Finally, we found some evidence of sociodemographic group differences with respect to types of health factors mentioned, valence of health factors, and conditional health statements, highlighting avenues for future research. Conclusion This study provides a description of how participants rate their general health status and highlights potential differences in these processes across sociodemographic groups, helping to provide a more comprehensive understanding of how SRH functions as a measure of health