Federal program expenditures for working-age people with disabilities: Research Report

Public assistance programs are important sources of support for working-age people with disabilities in the United States. Using a variety of information sources, the authors estimate that the federal government spent $226 billion in 2002 on working-age people with disabilities, including both cash and in-kind benefits. These expenditures account for about 2.2 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) and 11.3 percent of all federal outlays. States contributed an additional$50 billion under federal-state programs. The bulk of these expenditures provided income support and health care to working-age people with disabilities who were not employed or had very low earnings. The authors provide a detailed accounting of the expenditures and question whether the distribution of expenditures is properly aligned with the evolving disability paradigm

E-Choice option for Elsevier's Science/Direct

If there's one thing that seems to be as reliable as the rising sun, it's that each year brings a new ScienceDirect pricing scheme from Elsevier. This might be seen in the positive context of flexibility and a willingness to adapt and/or learn. With E-Choice Elsevier has formally adopted the perspective of those institutions for which quality trumps quantity

Low fertility increases descendant socioeconomic position but reduces long-term fitness in a modern post-industrial society.

Adaptive accounts of modern low human fertility argue that small family size maximizes the inheritance of socioeconomic resources across generations and may consequently increase long-term fitness. This study explores the long-term impacts of fertility and socioeconomic position (SEP) on multiple dimensions of descendant success in a unique Swedish cohort of 14 000 individuals born during 1915-1929. We show that low fertility and high SEP predict increased descendant socioeconomic success across four generations. Furthermore, these effects are multiplicative, with the greatest benefits of low fertility observed when SEP is high. Low fertility and high SEP do not, however, predict increased descendant reproductive success. Our results are therefore consistent with the idea that modern fertility limitation represents a strategic response to the local costs of rearing socioeconomically competitive offspring, but contradict adaptive models suggesting that it maximizes long-term fitness. This indicates a conflict in modern societies between behaviours promoting socioeconomic versus biological success. This study also makes a methodological contribution, demonstrating that the number of offspring strongly predicts long-term fitness and thereby validating use of fertility data to estimate current selective pressures in modern populations. Finally, our findings highlight that differences in fertility and SEP can have important long-term effects on the persistence of social inequalities across generations

Application of statistical decision theory to the detection of radiotelegraph signals

Imperial Users onl

Why do British Indian children have an apparent mental health advantage?

BACKGROUND: Previous studies document a mental health advantage in British Indian children, particularly for externalising problems. The causes of this advantage are unknown. METHODS: Subjects were 13,836 White children and 361 Indian children aged 5-16 years from the English subsample of the British Child and Adolescent Mental Health Surveys. The primary mental health outcome was the parent Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). Mental health was also assessed using the teacher and child SDQs; diagnostic interviews with parents, teachers and children; and multi-informant clinician-rated diagnoses. Multiple child, family, school and area factors were examined as possible mediators or confounders in explaining observed ethnic differences. RESULTS: Indian children had a large advantage for externalising problems and disorders, and little or no difference for internalising problems and disorders. This was observed across all mental health outcomes, including teacher-reported and diagnostic interview measures. Detailed psychometric analyses provided no suggestion of information bias. The Indian advantage for externalising problems was partly mediated by Indian children being more likely to live in two-parent families and less likely to have academic difficulties. Yet after adjusting for these and all other covariates, the unexplained Indian advantage only reduced by about a quarter (from 1.08 to .71 parent SDQ points) and remained highly significant (p < .001). This Indian advantage was largely confined to families of low socio-economic position. CONCLUSION: The Indian mental health advantage is real and is specific to externalising problems. Family type and academic abilities mediate part of the advantage, but most is not explained by major risk factors. Likewise unexplained is the absence in Indian children of a socio-economic gradient in mental health. Further investigation of the Indian advantage may yield insights into novel ways to promote child mental health and child mental health equity in all ethnic groups

Regional and Racial Variation in Health Care Among Medicare Beneficiaries

Focuses on variations in healthcare delivery and outcomes among and within hospital service areas, in addition to racial and geographic disparities, as measured by five indicators. Discusses variations in spending and considers implications for reform