Several categories of medical expenditures are not covered by Medicare, including prescription drugs, most nursing home stays, and extended hospital visits. Out-of-pocket costs for these items can be substantial, and what’s more, they are likely to be concentrated at the end of life. At the same time, it is well documented that poverty is 3-4… Continue reading Medicare Gaps and Widow Poverty

The purpose of this study was to estimate the costs to the nation of the inadequate education of a substantial portion of the population, where an inadequate education for the latter third of the twentieth century was defined as an attainment of less than high school graduation. Using data from the Department of Commerce and… Continue reading The Effects of Dropping Out. The Costs to the Nation of Inadequate Education: A Report Prepared for the Select Committee on Equal Educational Opportunity of the United States Senate; Excerpts from “Youth in Transition, Volume 3: Dropping Out–Problem or Symptom?”

The authors explored whether neighborhood-level characteristics are associated with ischemic stroke and whether the association differs by ethnicity, age, and gender. Using data from the Brain Attack Surveillance in Corpus Christi Project (January 2000-June 2003), they identified cases of ischemic stroke (n = 1,247) from both hospital and out-of-hospital sources. Census tracts served as proxies… Continue reading Neighborhood Environment and Risk of Ischemic Stroke: The Brain Attack Surveillance in Corpus Christi (BASIC) Project

Summary. Problems of the analysis of data with incomplete observations are all too familiar in statistics. They are doubly difficult if we are also uncertain about the choice of model. We propose a general formulation for the discussion of such problems and develop approximations to the resulting bias of maximum likelihood estimates on the assumption… Continue reading Comment on ‘Local model uncertainty and incomplete-data bias’

The belief that schools can play a powerful role in preventing tobacco use among adolescents has led to the implementation of various tobacco-related polices and practices. This study examines the association between school policies regarding monitoring student behavior, severity of action taken for infraction of policies, and tobacco use by staff, and student smoking behavior… Continue reading School Tobacco Control Policies Related to Students’ Smoking and Attitudes Toward Smoking: National Survey Results, 1999-2000