“…Take up thy Bed, and Vote” Measuring the Relationship between Voting Behaviour and Indicators of Health

Individuals experiencing poor health are less likely to vote at election time, despite being the ones most affected by health policies implemented by the successful party. This paper investigates the relationship between health and voter turnout and political party choice in the 1979, 1987 and 1997 British general elections using the National Child Development Study (NCDS). It finds that poor health is associated with lower turnout, as the perceived costs of voting, such as the physical and mental effort involved, are greater than the perceived benefits, which are derived from the policy implications of the election outcome. In addition, the subset of unhealthy individuals who do vote at election time generally support Labour, as such voters are more likely to utilise the NHS and hence support parties that advocate public provision of health services. Given the low participation rates of the unhealthy, a political party which formulates an attractive policy package aimed at such potential voters could therefore mobilise a previously untapped source of the electorate.Health Status, Voter Turnout, Political Party Choice

Did political constraints bind during transition? Evidence from Czech elections 1990 - 2002

Many theoretical models of transition are driven by the assumption that economic decision making is subject to political constraints. In this paper we empirically test whether the winners and losers of economic reform determined voting behaviour in the first five national elections in the Czech Republic. We propose that voters, taking stock of endowments from the planning era, could predict whether they would become “winners” or “losers” of transition. Using survey data we measure the percentage of individuals by region who were “afraid” and “not afraid” of economic reform in 1990. We define the former as potential “winners” who should vote for pro-reform parties, while latter are potential “losers” who should support left-wing parties. Using national election results and regional economic indicators, we demonstrate that there is persistence in support for pro-reform and communist parties driven by prospective voting based on initial conditions in 1990. As a result, we show that regional unemployment rates in 2002 are good predictors of regional voting patterns in 1990.

Political Interest, Cognitive Ability and Personality - Determinants of Voter Turnout in Britain

This paper uses longitudinal data from the National Cohort Development Study (NCDS) to investigate the determinants of voter turnout in the 1997 British General Election. It introduces measures of cognitive ability and personality into models of electoral participation and finds that firstly, their inclusion reduces the impact of education and secondly, that standard turnout models may be biased by the inclusion of the much used “interest in politics” measure. A bivariate probit model of turnout and interest then shows that individuals with high ability, an aggressive personality and a sense of civic duty are more likely to both turn out to vote and to have an interest in politics.Turnout, Education, Ability, Personality

Returns to basic skills in Central and Eastern Europe - a semi-parametric approach

This paper uses semi-parametric econometric techniques to investigate the relationship between basic skills and earning in three post-communist countries - the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovenia using the IALS dataset. While the large increases in the returns to education in the new market economies has been well documented in the literature, no study to date has examined the impact of basic skills and schooling on income. Estimating a Mincer human capital model we find that including a measure of basic skills reduces the returns to education. In addition, using a partial linear model in which log earnings is linear in schooling, but is an arbitrary function of basic skills, we find that this relationship is not well described by the common assumption of linearity at the tails of the distribution.Earnings, Education, Basic skills, Transition

Did Political Constraints Bind during Transition? Evidence from Czech Elections 1990-2002

Many theoretical models of transition are driven by the assumption that economic decision making is subject to political constraints. In this paper we empirically test whether the winners and losers of economic reform determined voting behaviour in the first five national elections in the Czech Republic. We propose that voters, taking stock of endowments from the planning era, could predict whether they would become “winners” or “losers” of transition. Using survey data we measure the percentage of individuals by region who were “not afraid” and “afraid” of economic reform in 1990. We define the former as potential “winners” who should vote for pro-reform parties, while latter are potential “losers” who should support left-wing parties. Using national election results and regional economic indicators, we demonstrate that there is persistence in support for pro-reform and communist parties driven by prospective voting based on initial conditions in 1990. As a result, we show that regional unemployment rates in 2002 are good predictors of regional voting patterns in 1990.Political Constraints, Prospective Economic Voting, Initial Conditions.

Personalized Medication Response Prediction for Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: Learning in the Model Space vs. Learning in the Data Space.

Attention-Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) is one of the most common mental health disorders amongst school-aged children with an estimated prevalence of 5% in the global population (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Stimulants, particularly methylphenidate (MPH), are the first-line option in the treatment of ADHD (Reeves and Schweitzer, 2004; Dopheide and Pliszka, 2009) and are prescribed to an increasing number of children and adolescents in the US and the UK every year (Safer et al., 1996; McCarthy et al., 2009), though recent studies suggest that this is tailing off, e.g., Holden et al. (2013). Around 70% of children demonstrate a clinically significant treatment response to stimulant medication (Spencer et al., 1996; Schachter et al., 2001; Swanson et al., 2001; Barbaresi et al., 2006). However, it is unclear which patient characteristics may moderate treatment effectiveness. As such, most existing research has focused on investigating univariate or multivariate correlations between a set of patient characteristics and the treatment outcome, with respect to dosage of one or several types of medication. The results of such studies are often contradictory and inconclusive due to a combination of small sample sizes, low-quality data, or a lack of available information on covariates. In this paper, feature extraction techniques such as latent trait analysis were applied to reduce the dimension of on a large dataset of patient characteristics, including the responses to symptom-based questionnaires, developmental health factors, demographic variables such as age and gender, and socioeconomic factors such as parental income. We introduce a Bayesian modeling approach in a "learning in the model space" framework that combines existing knowledge in the literature on factors that may potentially affect treatment response, with constraints imposed by a treatment response model. The model is personalized such that the variability among subjects is accounted for by a set of subject-specific parameters. For remission classification, this approach compares favorably with conventional methods such as support vector machines and mixed effect models on a range of performance measures. For instance, the proposed approach achieved an area under receiver operator characteristic curve of 82-84%, compared to 75-77% obtained from conventional regression or machine learning ("learning in the data space") methods

Prevalence, associated factors and outcomes of pressure injuries in adult intensive care unit patients: the DecubICUs study

Funder: European Society of Intensive Care Medicine; doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100013347Funder: Flemish Society for Critical Care NursesAbstract: Purpose: Intensive care unit (ICU) patients are particularly susceptible to developing pressure injuries. Epidemiologic data is however unavailable. We aimed to provide an international picture of the extent of pressure injuries and factors associated with ICU-acquired pressure injuries in adult ICU patients. Methods: International 1-day point-prevalence study; follow-up for outcome assessment until hospital discharge (maximum 12 weeks). Factors associated with ICU-acquired pressure injury and hospital mortality were assessed by generalised linear mixed-effects regression analysis. Results: Data from 13,254 patients in 1117 ICUs (90 countries) revealed 6747 pressure injuries; 3997 (59.2%) were ICU-acquired. Overall prevalence was 26.6% (95% confidence interval [CI] 25.9–27.3). ICU-acquired prevalence was 16.2% (95% CI 15.6–16.8). Sacrum (37%) and heels (19.5%) were most affected. Factors independently associated with ICU-acquired pressure injuries were older age, male sex, being underweight, emergency surgery, higher Simplified Acute Physiology Score II, Braden score 3 days, comorbidities (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, immunodeficiency), organ support (renal replacement, mechanical ventilation on ICU admission), and being in a low or lower-middle income-economy. Gradually increasing associations with mortality were identified for increasing severity of pressure injury: stage I (odds ratio [OR] 1.5; 95% CI 1.2–1.8), stage II (OR 1.6; 95% CI 1.4–1.9), and stage III or worse (OR 2.8; 95% CI 2.3–3.3). Conclusion: Pressure injuries are common in adult ICU patients. ICU-acquired pressure injuries are associated with mainly intrinsic factors and mortality. Optimal care standards, increased awareness, appropriate resource allocation, and further research into optimal prevention are pivotal to tackle this important patient safety threat

Prevalence, associated factors and outcomes of pressure injuries in adult intensive care unit patients: the DecubICUs study

Funder: European Society of Intensive Care Medicine; doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100013347Funder: Flemish Society for Critical Care NursesAbstract: Purpose: Intensive care unit (ICU) patients are particularly susceptible to developing pressure injuries. Epidemiologic data is however unavailable. We aimed to provide an international picture of the extent of pressure injuries and factors associated with ICU-acquired pressure injuries in adult ICU patients. Methods: International 1-day point-prevalence study; follow-up for outcome assessment until hospital discharge (maximum 12 weeks). Factors associated with ICU-acquired pressure injury and hospital mortality were assessed by generalised linear mixed-effects regression analysis. Results: Data from 13,254 patients in 1117 ICUs (90 countries) revealed 6747 pressure injuries; 3997 (59.2%) were ICU-acquired. Overall prevalence was 26.6% (95% confidence interval [CI] 25.9–27.3). ICU-acquired prevalence was 16.2% (95% CI 15.6–16.8). Sacrum (37%) and heels (19.5%) were most affected. Factors independently associated with ICU-acquired pressure injuries were older age, male sex, being underweight, emergency surgery, higher Simplified Acute Physiology Score II, Braden score 3 days, comorbidities (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, immunodeficiency), organ support (renal replacement, mechanical ventilation on ICU admission), and being in a low or lower-middle income-economy. Gradually increasing associations with mortality were identified for increasing severity of pressure injury: stage I (odds ratio [OR] 1.5; 95% CI 1.2–1.8), stage II (OR 1.6; 95% CI 1.4–1.9), and stage III or worse (OR 2.8; 95% CI 2.3–3.3). Conclusion: Pressure injuries are common in adult ICU patients. ICU-acquired pressure injuries are associated with mainly intrinsic factors and mortality. Optimal care standards, increased awareness, appropriate resource allocation, and further research into optimal prevention are pivotal to tackle this important patient safety threat

Correction to: Prevalence, associated factors and outcomes of pressure injuries in adult intensive care unit patients: the DecubICUs study

The original version of this article unfortunately contained a mistake