Black and White Perceptions of Quality of Life in Boston

It is difficult, probably impossible, to compare objectively the seriousness of racial problems and tensions in Boston with those in other cities. However, there can be little doubt that there is a widespread perception that relationships between blacks and whites in Boston constitute a serious problem. Specifically, one image is that Boston is a community in which blacks are not welcome and in which they are treated with unusual hostility and abuse. Another image is that whites in Boston are unfairly maligned as racists and bigots. In 1980, following several race-related incidents, The Boston Committee was formed. The purpose of the Committee is to direct an integrated effort to address the problems that contribute to racial tension and conflict in Boston. A needed first step was a clear, factually-based definition of the real problems in Boston

More on the value of split ballots

Der Autor diskutiert forschungspraktische Probleme, die sich im Rahmen der kognitiven Testung bei Umfragen ergeben, z.B. das Problem, dass alternative Formulierungen von gleichen Fragestellungen zu unterschiedlichen Bewertungen der Daten führen können. Er verdeutlicht anhand von sechs Tabellen die Unterschiede bei den erhobenen Daten, die aus zwei Forschungsprojekten stammen, in denen sehr ähnliche Befragungsmethoden eingesetzt worden sind. (ICI

Why it is easy to write bad questions

Es gibt mindestens acht Standards, denen Fragen in Fragebögen entsprechen sollten. Ein Grund dafür, dass Fragen falsch gestellt werden, ist der, dass Forscher einige Standards berücksichtigen, andere aber ignorieren. Ein komplexeres Problem besteht darin, dass eine nach einem Standard gute Frage gemessen an einem anderen Standard eine schlechte Frage sein kann. Darüberhinaus liefern die typischen Evaluierungsverfahren von Pretests und Fragen keine Informationen über alle acht Standards. Wenn über einen Standard keine Informationen vorliegen, kann er leicht vernachlässigt werden. Forscher verwenden zudem gerne Fragen, die schon einmal gestellt wurden, auch wenn die Schwächen dieser Fragen bereits bekannt sind. Dieser Aufsatz stellt die acht Standards vor und diskutiert Konflikte zwischen den einzelnen Standards, Schwierigkeiten bei der Evaluation von Fragen und Implikationen für die Umfrageforschung. (ICEÜbers)'There are at least 8 standards that survey questions should meet. One reason it is easy to write poor questions is that researchers focus on some standards but ignore others. A more complex problem is posed by the fact that designing a question that is good according to one standard can make it a poor question when judged against another standard. Third, typical pretest and question evaluation procedures do not provide information about all 8 standards. It is easy to ignore a standard if there is no information about it. Finally, researchers often are committed to questions that have been used previously, even when there is evidence that they are flawed. This paper presents the 8 standards, the ways in which they can be in conflict, the challenges of evaluating questions, and the implications for standard survey practice.' (author's abstract)

Watchful Waiting vs. Immediate Transurethral Prostatectomy for Symptomatic Prostatism

The rate of resection for benign prostatic hypertrophy shows considerable variability among small geographic areas. To help inform the decision to recommend prostatectomy to men with prostatism without signs of chronic retention, we performed a decision analysis to compare the expected outcomes with immediate transurethral resection and watchful waiting. Data used in the model originated from the medical literature, Medicare claims data, and patient interview studies. In our base-case for 70-year-old men, immediate surgery resulted in the loss of 1.01 months of life expectancy, but when adjustments were made for quality of life, immediate surgery was favored with a net utility benefit of 2.94 quality-adjusted life-months. However, the analysis was particularly sensitive to the degree of disutility attributed to the index symptoms of prostatism. We conclude that patient preferences should be the dominant factor in the decision whether to recommend prostatectomy

The American Public’s Perception of Illegal Steroid Use: A National Survey, 2013

Through the surge of news about doping scandals in the media, it is expected that the public is aware of the magnitude of the problem among professional athletes; however, it is uncertain whether the public is aware that the problem often starts when athletes are younger. To this end, the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, the Taylor Hooton Foundation, and the Professional Baseball Athletic Trainers Society partnered with the Center for Social Development and Education and the Center for Survey Research at the University of Massachusetts Boston to conduct the most comprehensive national opinion survey to date to assess the public’s knowledge, perceptions, and beliefs about the use of performance enhancing drugs among adolescents. It is hoped that the findings obtained through this survey will provide a foundation for a national dialogue about this problem

Worcester Model Cities Resident Attitude Survey

In January of 1972, the staff and resident representatives of the Worcester Model Cities neighborhood contracted the Survey Research Program to work with them to conduct a survey of neighborhood residents. The purpose of the project was to collect data that would assist those in the Model Cities area to systematically measure residents\u27 perceptions and feelings, to identify problems and needs, to plan programs, and, perhaps, at a later date to have a basis against which to measure change. The project, as it was designed and as it was carried out, was a joint effort. A committee of residents and staff outlined the study objectives. Program staff prepared several drafts of the interview schedule for review, incorporating the committee\u27s suggestions at each stage. The committee interviewed and helped to screen applicants for interviewers, who were then trained by Survey Research Program staff. When field work was in progress. Model Cities staff monitored the interviewers\u27 day-by-day progress, while Program staff met with interviewers for more intensive review sessions on a weekly basis. And so it is appropriate that the analysis of the data, too, is a cooperative effort rather than simply a document prepared by a consultant. Once the basic distributions of answers had been tabulated, Model Cities staff met with Survey Research Program staff to jointly decide on what further tabulations should be prepared. Copies of all tabulations were provided to Model Cities, so that residents and staff could begin to review and use the findings. This document is not intended to be the product of the project, or to be the report. If we have done our job properly, there should be many products and many reports which in part make use of the study data over the next year or two. The data should be a resource that can be drawn on continuously. Consistent with this orientation, we have tried primarily to put together some of the most basic and interesting tables in a form that is accessible. For the most part, the data have only been summarized, without any attempt to derive implications or conclusions from them. Our goal was to prepare a working document, which could be used by Model Cities residents and staff as one important resource in the planning and assessing of Model Cities programs in Worcester

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Uninformed Patient Choice: The American Way of Making Medical Decisions

Paper presented at the 1st International Symposium on Understanding Health Benefits and Risks: Empowering Patients and Citizens. Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland. May 29, 2009The model of delegating medical decisions to doctors is alive and well in the U.S. When patients describe interactions with physicians around decisions, they clearly are doctor driven. More importantly, most of the “discussion” is aimed at getting the patient to do something: take a pill, get tested, have surgery, rather than weighing the pros and cons. Doctors are by far the main source of information for patients. Only a minority use the Internet to get information for any particular decision, and even those patients that do say the doctor is more important. However they try to get information, patients end up with very little information about the options they face and basically are in no position to exercise an informed choice. They usually do what doctors recommend. Most physicians report that it would be good if patients had good information. However, doctors do not think highly of the information patients are currently getting, and they report that lack of time and patient ability to understand key information are barriers to their trying to inform patients themselves. Finally, there is a variety of opinions among physicians about whether having patients play an active role in decision making is a good idea