Social Statistics Commons^™

American Obesity: Rooted In Uncertainty, Institutions And Public Policy, James Woodward

Theses and Dissertations--Public Policy and Administration

Despite the efforts of policymakers, medical professionals, and other stakeholders, obesity and related health problems show no signs of receding from their record-high rates. Public policy has largely taken the form of consumer advice, (e.g., USDA’s Dietary Guidelines). Since consumers bear most of the costs associated with their obesity, the goal of obesity prevention appears to be incentive-compatible, prima facie. That is, there is no a priori case for much further policy intervention unless existing advice is deficient or consumers’ exhibit systematically poor decision-making.

My review of the literature shows that scholars have long conveyed a consistent narrative regarding …

Conservative Tests Under Satisficing Models Of Publication Bias, Justin Mccrary, Garret Christensen, Daniel Finelli

Faculty Scholarship

Publication bias leads consumers of research to observe a selected sample of statistical estimates calculated by producers of research. We calculate critical values for statistical significance that could help to adjust after the fact for the distortions created by this selection effect, assuming that the only source of publication bias is file drawer bias. These adjusted critical values are easy to calculate and differ from unadjusted critical values by approximately 50% – rather than rejecting a null hypothesis when the t-ratio exceeds 2, the analysis suggests rejecting a null hypothesis when the t-ratio exceeds 3. Samples of published social science …

Policies And Clinical Practices Regarding Candidacy And Auditory Treatment For Hispanic Pediatric Patients In Cochlear Implant Centers In The United States, Matthew Ehrenburg

Senior Independent Study Theses

This research sought to investigate the policies and clinical practices regarding candidacy and auditory treatment for Hispanic pediatric cochlear implant patients at cochlear implant centers in the United States. More specifically, the study investigated treatment services provided to pediatric patients who are raised in monolingual Spanish, English as a second language (ESL), and bilingual English-Spanish speaking homes. The study made use of survey research to examine cochlear implant centers regarding their policies, clinical practices, and their referral processes for this specific group of cochlear implant recipients. The survey was distributed electronically through the online survey software Qualtrics via email to …

Life, Liberty, And The Pursuit Of Happiness: Measuring What Matters, Laura Musikanski, Carl Polley

Journal of Sustainable Social Impact

This essay focuses on ways in which the governments of Bhutan and the United Kingdom are measuring subjective well-being as well as on how other governments including Norway, Spain, China, Canada, and New Zealand, are exploring the development of subjective well-being indicators. It concludes with recommended actions to aid in the formation of a consistent and comparable subjective well-being indicator for use by governments globally. The third in a series for which the purpose is to provide information to grassroots activists to foster the happiness movement for a new economic paradigm, this essay builds on the previous essays, Happiness in …

What Is Being Done With Open Government Data? An Exploratory Analysis Of Public Uses Of New York City Open Data, Karen Okamoto

Publications and Research

In 2012, New York City Council passed legislation to make government data open and freely available to the public. By approving this legislation, City Council was attempting to make local government more transparent, accountable, and streamlined in its operations. It was also attempting to create economic opportunities and to encourage the public to identify ways in which to improve government and local communities. The purpose of this study is to explore public uses of New York City open data. Currently, more than 1300 datasets covering broad areas such as health, education, transportation, public safety, housing and business are available on …

Sensitivity Analysis In Handling Discrete Data Missing At Random In Hierarchical Linear Models Via Multivariate Normality, Xiyu Zheng

Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

In a two-level hierarchical linear model(HLM2), the outcome as well as covariates may have missing values at any of the levels. One way to analyze all available data in the model is to estimate a multivariate normal joint distribution of variables, including the outcome, subject to missingness conditional on covariates completely observed by maximum likelihood(ML); draw multiple imputation (MI) of missing values given the estimated joint model; and analyze the hierarchical model given the MI [1,2]. The assumption is data missing at random (MAR). While this method yields efficient estimation of the hierarchical model, it often estimates the model …