Cumulative Effects of Job Characteristics on Health

We present what we believe are the best estimates of how job characteristics of physical demands and environmental conditions affect individual’s health. Five-year cumulative measures of these job characteristics are used to reflect findings in the physiologic literature that cumulative exposure is most relevant for the impact of hazards and stresses on health. Using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics we find that individuals who work in jobs with the ‘worst’ conditions experience declines in their health, although this effect varies by demographic group. For example, for non-white men, a one standard deviation increase in cumulative physical demands decreases health by an amount that offsets an increase of two years of schooling or four years of aging. Job characteristics are found more detrimental to the health of females and older workers. These results are robust to inclusion of occupation fixed effects, health early in life and lagged health.Health, occupational characteristic

Entwicklungsrisiko Rechtschreibschwäche (Legasthenie)

Lernstörungen wie Legasthenie oder Rechtschreibschwäche bei Kindern stellen nicht nur ein beträchtliches Risiko für die schulische Ausbildung und die berufliche Karriere des Kindes dar, sondern gehen mit einer hohen Gefährdung der seelischen Gesundheit aufgrund der psychischen Folgebelastungen einher. Die Forderung nach Wirksamkeitsnachweisen ist aufgrund des mittlerweile unüberschaubaren Angebots an Fördermaßnahmen ein „Muss“ zur Qualitätssicherung, allerdings ist die Eignung eines Untersuchungsdesigns der „Randomized Controlled“-Studien (RCT) für die Anwendung bei Wirksamkeitsstudien von Trainingsprogrammen zur Behandlung von Rechtschreibschwäche kritisch zu hinterfragen. Die „Sindelar-Methode“ versteht Teilleistungsschwächen als Basis von Rechtschreibschwächen und setzt in der Behandlung bei diesen an. Eine Evaluierungsstudie der Sindelar-Methode an 28 Kindern und Jugendlichen weist eine Steigerung der Rechtschreibleistung von unterdurchschnittlichem zu durchschnittlichem Niveau nach und belegt mit hoher statistischer Effektstärke die Wirksamkeit der Methode, die auf einem ganzheitlichen Verständnis der kindlichen Entwicklung beruht.

Estimating Causal Effects of Early Occupational Choice on Later Health: Evidence Using the PSID

In this paper, we provide some of the first empirical evidence of whether early occupational choices are associated with lasting effects on health status, affecting individuals as they age. We take advantage of data on occupational histories available in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) to examine this issue. To the PSID data, we merge historical Census data that reflect the labor market conditions when each individual in the PSID made his first occupational choice. These data on labor market conditions (e.g. state-level share of blue collar workers) allow us to instrument for occupational choice in order to alleviate endogeneity bias. We use parental occupation as additional instruments. Since our instruments may have indirect effects on later health, we also control for respondent’s pre-labor market health, education and several family and state background characteristics in order to make the instruments more plausibly excludable. We find substantial evidence that a blue collar occupation at labor force entry is associated with decrements to later health status, ceteris paribus. These health effects are larger after controlling for endogeneity and are similar across sets of instruments. We also find differences in the effects of occupation by gender, race, and age.

Waving Reality Goodbye - Flieht eine Generation in eine alternative Welt oder schöpft sie dort die notwendige Kraft für Veränderungen?

Alternative Realitäten spielen in der Entwicklung einer ganzen Generation seit Jahren eine tragende Rolle. Soziale Medien und Computerspiele kreieren immer umfangreichere virtuelle Parallelwelten. Diese sind spätestens seit der Debatte über ihren Einfluss auf Politik, Gesellschaft, Wahlen oder auf die Entwicklung von Jugendbewegungen im Fokus der Aufmerksamkeit angelangt. Whatsapp, Facebook, Snapchat und die Spielewelt, ob offline oder online, sind in unserer Gesellschaft von rasch wachsender Bedeutung. Reale und virtuelle Welten verschmelzen und neue, vermischte Realitäten entstehen. Ungeachtet dessen, ob dies als Vorteil oder Nachteil bewertet wird, legt diese Entwicklung eine individualpsychologische Betrachtung nahe, denn sie spiegelt die Befindlichkeiten, Wünsche, Ängste, Sorgen, aber auch die Chancen, das Potenzial und die konstruktive Kraft einer ganzen Generation wider

Tobacco Use, Taxation and Self Control in Adolescence

Recent literature has suggested that higher taxes on addictive goods could increase welfare by assisting individuals with self control problems and trouble resisting 'temptation’. In contrast, if individuals continue to use despite increased prices, taxation may serve to reduce the welfare of these individuals while providing no benefits in managing self control nor mitigating externalities. We use data on adolescents from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) to examine the impact of tobacco taxes on smoking. To account for unobserved heterogeneity in response to taxes we estimate finite mixture models, positing two types of individuals with differential responses to taxes. We find evidence of differential price elasticity for tobacco use across the adolescents groups, and show that individuals with low self control or high discount rates are largely unresponsive to cigarette price. Those who have the least willpower may need the most help in quitting but are unresponsive to taxes, suggesting that policies other than taxation may be needed to reduce adolescent tobacco use.

Cumulative Effects of Job Characteristics on Health

We examine whether the job characteristics of physical demands and environmental conditions affect individual’s health. Five-year cumulative measures of these job characteristics are used to reflect findings in the biologic and physiologic literature that indicate that cumulative exposure to hazards and stresses harms health. To create our analytic sample, we merge job characteristics from the Dictionary of Occupational Titles with the Panel Study of Income Dynamics dataset. We control for early and lagged health measures and a set of pre-determined characteristics to address concerns that individuals self-select into jobs. Our results indicate that individuals who work in jobs with the ‘worst’ conditions experience declines in their health, though this effect varies by demographic group. For example, for non-white men, a one standard deviation increase in cumulative physical demands decreases health by an amount that offsets an increase of two years of schooling or four years of aging. We also find evidence that job characteristics are more detrimental to the health of females and older workers. Finally, we report suggestive evidence that earned income, another job characteristic, partially cushions the health impact of physical demands and harsh environmental conditions for workers. These results are robust to inclusion of occupation fixed effects.

INITIAL CHARACTERIZATION AND PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF A ZIRCONIUM-BASED METALLIC WASTE FORM

A metallic waste form or alloy system for immobilization of Zircaloy cladding hulls, Undissolved Solids (UDS), Technicium (Tc) metal and Transition Metal Fission Products (TMFP) waste stream materials from separations processes for commercial spent nuclear fuel has been developed, and initial characterization of the phase assemblage and composition, and corrosion testing under aqueous conditions has been completed for the waste form with various levels of surrogate waste species. The waste stream materials are those from processes being developed as part of the Separations Campaign under the Department of Energy's (DOE's) Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) program. The development of waste forms for these materials is under the Waste Form Campaign

Evaluation of a Weight‐based Rabbit Anti‐thymocyte Globulin Induction Dosing Regimen for Kidney Transplant Recipients

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/113166/1/phar1624.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/113166/2/phar1624_am.pd

Job Loss: Eat, Drink and Try to be Merry

Preliminary draft. Please do not quote. This paper examines the impact of job loss due to business closings on body mass index (BMI) and alcohol consumption. We suggest that the ambiguous findings in the extant literature may be due in part to unobserved heterogeneity in response and in part due to an overly broad measure of job loss that is partially endogenous (e.g. layoffs). We improve upon this literature by using: exogenously determined business closings, a sophisticated estimation approach (finite mixture models) to deal with complex heterogeneity, and national, longitudinal data from the Health and Retirement Study. For both alcohol consumption and BMI, we find evidence that individuals who are more likely to respond to job loss by increasing unhealthy behaviors are already in the problematic range for these behaviors before losing their jobs. These results suggest the health effects of job loss could be concentrated among “at risk ” individuals and could lead to negative outcomes for the individuals, their families, and society at large