Publications
Long-Term Care
 The U.S. health care system is struggling with how to meet the long-term care needs of an aging population. A new web page details our long-term care work, which includes descriptive studies of the long-term care population and workforce, evaluations of communitywide interventions, and rigorous analysis of the impacts of programs ranging from consumer-directed approaches to highly structured adult day care programs.
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Food Stamp Rates
 "Food Stamp Participation Rates: 2004." Allison Barrett and Anni Poikolainen, June 2006. Of the 38 million people eligible for food stamps in an average month during 2004, 23 million (60 percent) chose to participate. Conversely, about 15 million eligible people did not participate. Participation by eligible children and individuals in the poorest households, as well as by TANF and SSI recipients, continues to follow historical patterns, with at least 75 percent participating.
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Gender and High-Tech Careers
 "Gender Differences in Adolescents’ Attitudes About IT Careers.” Martha M. Bleeker, Encyclopedia of Gender and Information Technology, 2006. Though the popularity of technology continues to flourish and drive the American economy, recent studies suggest that the revolution may be leaving females behind, with the number of U.S. women earning computer science degrees plummeting over the past two decades. This article analyzes gender differences in adolescents’ attitudes about IT careers—computer scientist, computer systems analyst, database administrator, webmaster, web developer/designer, computer support services, and computer teacher. The author found that regardless of gender, interest in the IT jobs included in the study was very low, with boys reporting higher interest than girls. Overall, girls were most interested in web development. Boys reported higher expectations for success than girls for all of the careers, with the sole exception of web development.
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Disability Survey Methods
 “Surveying Persons with Disabilities: A Source Guide.” Jason Markesich, James Cashion, and Martha Bleeker, June 2006. As a collaborator with the Cornell Rehabilitation Research and Training Center on Disability Demographics and Statistics, Mathematica has been identifying the strengths and limitations in existing disability data collection in both content and data collection methodology. This source guide provides up-to-date and easily accessible sources of research on the methodological issues associated with surveying persons with disabilities. The guide contains 150 abstracts, summaries, and references, as well as a subject index, and will be updated periodically.
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Reading and the Youngest Kids
 "Mother-Child Bookreading in Low-Income Families: Correlates and Outcomes During the First Three Years of Life." Helen Raikes, Gayle Luze, Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, H. Abigail Raikes, Barbara Alexander Pan, Catherine S. Tamis-LeMonda, Jill Constantine, Louisa Banks Tarullo, and Eileen T. Rodriguez. Child Development, July/August 2006. Although reading to preschoolers has been shown to influence their later language and cognitive development, few studies have examined these relationships for children under age 3. Researchers studied over 2,500 low-income English- and Spanish-speaking families across the country who were participating in the Early Head Start evaluation. About half of the mothers reported reading daily to their children, and frequency was higher among white mothers than other ethnic groups, as well as among mothers of girls, firstborn children, and children in the Early Head Start program. English-speaking mothers who read to their children at a very early age had 2-year-olds with greater language comprehension; larger, more expressive vocabularies; and higher cognitive scores. Spanish-speaking mothers who read to very young children every day had 3-year-olds with greater language and cognitive development. The researchers note that language-oriented interventions for vulnerable children should begin earlier than has been generally proposed.
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