An Industry Missing Minorities: The Disparate Impact of the Securities and Exchange Commission\u27s Fingerprinting Rule

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ( EEOC ) recently asserted that the use of criminal background checks as an employment screening tool may have a disparate impact on African Americans and Hispanics, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The EEOC and some private claimants have even filed lawsuits against employers claiming disparate impact violations based on statistics that show African Americans and Hispanics are considerably more likely to have criminal records than other racial groups. Yet, certain federal regulatory agencies require participants in their industries to subject employees to criminal background checks as a condition of employment. The Securities and Exchange Commission ( SEC ) is one such agency. The SEC has promulgated a rule requiring industry employers to fingerprint employees and disqualify those that have been convicted of certain types of crimes. This Note discusses the requirements of a disparate impact claim and the EEOC\u27s position that criminal background check policies have a disparate impact on minorities. This Note further examines how technological changes in the securities industry have led to an unnecessarily broad application of the SEC\u27s fingerprint rule, resulting in potential Title VII liability for employers and contributing to the low number of African American and Hispanics in the securities industry. Finally, this Note proposes that the SEC could alleviate the potential Title VII liability created by the fingerprinting requirement by narrowing the scope of the fingerprint rule to bring it within the business necessity defense to Title VII

Mothers' and Fathers' Labor Supply in Fragile Families: The Role of Child Health

We estimate the effect of poor child health on the labor supply of mothers and fathers post welfare reform, using a national sample of mostly unwed parents and their children-a group at high risk of living in poverty. We account for the potential endogeneity of child health and find that having a young child in poor health reduces the mother's probability of working, the mother's hours of work, and the father's hours of work. These results suggest that children's health problems may diminish their parents' capacity to invest in their health.

Effects of Child Health on Sources of Public Support

We estimate the effects of having a child in poor health on the mother's receipt of both cash assistance and in-kind public support in the form of food, health care, and shelter. We control for a rich set of covariates, include state fixed effects, and test for the potential endogeneity of child health. Mothers with children in poor health are 5 percentage points (20%) more likely to rely on TANF and 16 percentage points more likely to rely on cash assistance (TANF and/or SSI) than those with healthy children. They are also more likely than those with healthy children to receive Medicaid and housing assistance, but not WIC or food stamps.

Mother's Labor Supply in Fragile Families: The Role of Child Health

A growing body of research indicates that low socioeconomic status in early childhood sets the stage for increasing disadvantages in both health and educational capital over the child's life course and can cause low socioeconomic status to persist for generations. The study estimated the effects of poor child health on the labor supply of mothers with one-year-old children using a national longitudinal data set that oversampled unmarried parents in the post welfare reform era. It was found that having a child in poor health reduces the mother's probability of working by eight percentage points and her hours of work by three per week when she is employed. Another important finding is that the father having children with another partner increases the mothers' labor supply, even after controlling for the focal child's health status and numerous other covariates.

Effects of Child Health on Parents' Relationship Status

We use data from the national longitudinal Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to estimate the effect of poor child health on father presence. We look at whether parents live in the same household 12-18 months after the child's birth and also at how their relationships changed along a continuum (married, cohabiting, romantically involved, friends, or not involved) during the same period. We find that having an infant in poor health reduces the likelihood that parents will live together and increases the likelihood that they will become less committed to their relationship, particularly among parents with low socioeconomic status.

Ambulation protocols leading to decreased postoperative complications and hospital stay

Background: In the postoperative course, patients are routinely encouraged to ambulate as frequently as possible. Typically in the hospital this can become burdensome to the staff and often becomes low priority. Patients are also not aware of the frequency and quality of the ambulation that is sufficient in the postoperative period. At present, patients on the surgical floor who are completely independent and without any devices (eg. Oxygen, nasogastric tubes, chest tubes) are freely able to ambulate at will although there is no reliable way to track this progress. Other patients with devices are limited to waiting for nursing or ancillary staff to assist them with securing the devices that they require in the postoperative period. Ambulation has been positively associated with decreased postoperative complications ranging from bowel function to deep venous thrombosis to pneumonia.https://jdc.jefferson.edu/patientsafetyposters/1065/thumbnail.jp

The Doing of Datafication (And What this Doing Does): Practices of Edification and the Enactment of New Forms of Sociality in the Indian Public Health Service

In this paper, we offer a performative, praxeological account of ongoing attempts to cultivate practices of datafication in the Indian public health service. In particular, we distinguish between two broad forms that such practices took—systematic practices of datafication and edifying practices of datafication—that involve data being enacted or performed in different ways. We explore the power of these different kinds of datafication practices by examining what their doing does and demonstrate how each—by enacting particular kinds of subject and object positions—is deeply implicated in the (re)production of different forms of human sociality. Describing these socialities as “authoritarian-bureaucratic” and “dialogic”, we explore the distinctive kinds of moods and affectivities that they generate. We conclude by drawing out some of the implications for research and practice

Demand for Illicit Drugs by Pregnant Women

We use survey data that have been linked to medical records data and city-level drug prices to estimate the demand for illicit drugs among pregnant women. The prevalence of prenatal drug use based on post partum interviews was much lower than that based on evidence in the mothers' and babies' medical records. We found that a $10 increase in the retail price of a gram of pure cocaine decreases illicit drug use by 12 to 15%. The estimated price effects for heroin are lower than for cocaine and are less robust across alternative model specifications. This study provides the first estimates of the effects of drug prices on prenatal drug use and yields important information about the potential of drug enforcement as a tool for improving birth outcomes.

Prenatal Drug Use and the Production of Infant Health

We estimate the effect of illicit drug use during pregnancy on low birth weight. We use data from a national longitudinal study of urban parents that includes post-partum interviews with mothers, hospital medical record data on the mother and newborn, extensive demographic information on both parents, and information about the city where the mother resides. We address the potential endogeneity of prenatal drug use and present estimates using alternative measures of prenatal illicit drug use. Depending on how drug use is measured, we find deleterious effects of illicit drug use on low birth weight that range from 3 to 5 percentage points.

Typically Unobserved Variables (TUVs) and Selection into Prenatal Inputs: Implications for Estimating Infant Health Production Functions

We examine the extent to which infant health production functions are sensitive to model specification and measurement error. We focus on the importance of typically unobserved but theoretically important variables (TUVs), other non-standard covariates (NSCs), input reporting, and characterization of infant health. The TUVs represent wantedness, taste for risky behavior, and maternal health endowment. The NSCs include father and family structure characteristics. We estimate effects of prenatal drug use, prenatal cigarette smoking, and first trimester prenatal care on birth weight, low birth weight, and a measure of abnormal infant health conditions. We compare estimates using self-reported inputs versus input measures that combine information from medical records and self-reports. We find that TUVs and NSCs are significantly associated with both inputs and outcomes, but that excluding them from infant health production functions does not appreciably affect the input estimates. However, using self-reported inputs leads to overestimated effects of inputs, particularly prenatal care, on outcomes, and using a direct measure of infant health does not always yield input estimates similar to those when using birth weight outcomes. The findings have implications for research, data collection, and public health policy.