Impacts of Adding Net Worth to the Poverty Definition

This paper estimates changes in the level and composition of poverty that would result from modifying the conventional income-based poverty measure to include the annuity value of household net worth. Under the new income/wealth measure, 13 percent of those currently measured as poor have enough assets to be removed from poverty. Among those more often found to be in poverty under the new measure are young, renters, and large central city residents. Age, home ownership, farm employment, education, retirement status, public assistance participation, and residence in the West are significant factors in explaining the divergence of the alternative poverty measures.

Perspectives on Household Portfolios, 1977-83

Total debt, total assets, and net worth all declined in real terms for the mean household over the 1977-83 period, according to consumer survey data. A high and rising concentration of household debt was held by the highest debt holders and the highest income households. While the proportion of households with high debt relative to income rose over this period, most of this increase was in relatively wealthy households. Relatively high concentrations of high debt households were found among high income, young, male, West region, and self-employed households.

Noninvasive vagus nerve stimulation alters neural response and physiological autonomic tone to noxious thermal challenge.

The mechanisms by which noninvasive vagal nerve stimulation (nVNS) affect central and peripheral neural circuits that subserve pain and autonomic physiology are not clear, and thus remain an area of intense investigation. Effects of nVNS vs sham stimulation on subject responses to five noxious thermal stimuli (applied to left lower extremity), were measured in 30 healthy subjects (n = 15 sham and n = 15 nVNS), with fMRI and physiological galvanic skin response (GSR). With repeated noxious thermal stimuli a group × time analysis showed a significantly (p < .001) decreased response with nVNS in bilateral primary and secondary somatosensory cortices (SI and SII), left dorsoposterior insular cortex, bilateral paracentral lobule, bilateral medial dorsal thalamus, right anterior cingulate cortex, and right orbitofrontal cortex. A group × time × GSR analysis showed a significantly decreased response in the nVNS group (p < .0005) bilaterally in SI, lower and mid medullary brainstem, and inferior occipital cortex. Finally, nVNS treatment showed decreased activity in pronociceptive brainstem nuclei (e.g. the reticular nucleus and rostral ventromedial medulla) and key autonomic integration nuclei (e.g. the rostroventrolateral medulla, nucleus ambiguous, and dorsal motor nucleus of the vagus nerve). In aggregate, noninvasive vagal nerve stimulation reduced the physiological response to noxious thermal stimuli and impacted neural circuits important for pain processing and autonomic output

Children's vomiting following posterior fossa surgery: A retrospective study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Nausea and vomiting is a problem for children after neurosurgery and those requiring posterior fossa procedures appear to have a high incidence. This clinical observation has not been quantified nor have risk factors unique to this group of children been elucidated.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A six year retrospective chart audit at two Canadian children's hospitals was conducted. The incidence of nausea and vomiting was extracted. Hierarchical multivariable logistic regression was used to quantify risk and protective factors at 120 hours after surgery and early vs. late vomiting.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The incidence of vomiting over a ten day postoperative period was 76.7%. Documented vomiting ranged from single events to greater than 20 over the same period. In the final multivariable model: adolescents (age 12 to <17) were less likely to vomit by 120 hours after surgery than other age groups; those who received desflurane, when compared to all other volatile anesthetics, were more likely to vomit, yet the use of ondansetron with desflurane decre kelihood. Children who had intraoperative ondansetron were more likely to vomit in the final multivariable model (perhaps because of its use, in the clinical judgment of the anesthesiologist, for children considered at risk). Children who started vomiting in the first 24 hours were more likely to be school age (groups 4 to <7 and 7 to <12) and receive desflurane. Nausea was not well documented and was therefore not analyzed.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The incidence of vomiting in children after posterior fossa surgery is sufficient to consider all children requiring these procedures to be at high risk for POV. Nausea requires better assessment and documentation.</p

How Well Can Alternative Policies Reduce Rural Substandard Housing?

Over 2 million of the Nation's 5.1 million substandard housing units were located in rural areas in 1981, with over half of them in the South. This report examines where substandard housing is concentrated and compares two approaches to reduce substandard housing in rural areas: building new housing or subsidizing existing housing. Programs to subsidize existing housing would reduce rural substandard housing more per dollar spent than would programs to construct new housing. A combined program that targets money toward housing construction in low-vacancy areas and toward subsidies of existing housing in high-vacancy areas would be the most cost-effective of the programs considered to reduce rural substandard conditions

Rural Consumer Debt: Is Recent Growth a Problem?

A surge in consumer debt in rural areas in the early I980's raised the proportion of high-debt rural families. While something to watch, it's not necessarily cause for alarm. Most high debt households had significantly improved their financial condition after 3 years

Substandard Housing

Rural areas have historically had a disproportionately large share of the Nation's substandard housing. That's still true today. Roughly 39 percent of the Nation's substandard housing units were in rural areas in 1980, while only 34 percent of American households lived in rural areas. This amounts to 2 million rural households living in substandard conditions in 1980