Increasing Consumer Choice

"An Evaluation of the Individual Training Account Eligible Training Provider Demonstration." Ron D'Amico, Jeffrey Salzman, and Paul Decker, May 2005. The Workforce Investment Act of 1998 requires that, with certain exceptions, training services funded by the U.S. Department of Labor be delivered through the use of Individual Training Accounts, which participants can use to procure the training of their choice, so long as the program is on a state's list of eligible providers. In March 2000, 13 states and local areas received grants to support system development and encourage innovative approaches and practices. This report presents findings from the evaluation of these efforts, describing grantees' accomplishments, policies and practices they formulated, the process for selecting providers, and information available to customers to make training choices. Executive summary. Full report.

Prisoner Reintegration

"Community Case Management for Former Jail Inmates: Its Impacts on Rearrest, Drug Use, and HIV Risk." Karen Needels, Susanne James-Burdumy, and John Burghardt, Journal of Urban Health, 2005. Dramatically increasing incarceration rates have led to large concentrations of formerly imprisoned people in poverty-stricken urban areas. Identifying ways to help ex-offenders with multiple, serious problems who are at risk of poor postrelease outcomes is an important policy concern. The authors examine the effectiveness of one strategy, called Health Link, that recruited adult women and adolescent men incarcerated in a New York City jail and offered intensive discharge planning and case management during the challenging first year after release. They found that participation in drug treatment programs increased, but evidence for reduced drug use was weak. There were no reductions in rearrest rates or in activities associated with a high risk of HIV infection. The authors conclude that a well-executed case management program can make modest differences in a few short-term outcomes, but the intervention did not lead to the hoped-for changes indicating greater success in community reintegration or improved health.

Child Development and Nutrition

"Increasing Breastfeeding Rates in New York City, 1980-2000."Melanie Besculides, Karine Grigoryan, and Febienne Laraque, Journal of Urban Health, June 2005. Although breastfeeding rates in New York City have more than doubled since 1980, there is still much progress to be made and work to be done to maintain recent gains. This article examines patterns of breastfeeding among women delivering infants in New York City and compares them with national breastfeeding trends. Of 16,932 newborns, representing approximately 80 percent of all reported live births in the city during the study period, 5,305 (31 percent) were exclusively breastfed, 6,189 (37 percent) were fed a combination of breast milk and formula, and the remaining 5,438 (32 percent) were exclusively formula-fed. Infants born in private hospitals were 1.6 times more likely to be exclusively breastfed, compared with infants discharged from public hospitals (33 percent versus 21 percent). Similarly, private patients were more likely than service patients to exclusively breastfeed their infants (40 percent versus 23 percent) and to use a combination of breast and formula (that is, any breastfeeding) (74 percent versus 62 percent). From 1980 to 2000, the proportion of exclusive breastfeeding increased from 25 percent to 31 percent, the percentage of combined feeding increased from 8 percent to 37 percent, and the percentage of any breastfeeding increased from 33 percent to 68 percent.

Survey Methods

"Interviewing Effects." Janice Ballou. In Polling America: An Encyclopedia of Public Opinion, Volume One, edited by Samuel J. Best and Benjamin Radcliff, 2005. This article describes errors to data quality introduced by those implementing survey procedures. The author notes that these errors can occur at every stage of the data collection process, and identifying and limiting their impact pose considerable challenges. She identifies three ways to minimize interviewing effects: (1) acknowledge the importance of the interviewer’s role; (2) take action to control for effects related to recruitment, training, and supervision; and (3) assess interview situations to identify when factors related to questionnaire topic, interviewer skills, and interviewer and respondent interaction are likely to impact data quality.

"Survey Introductions." "Survey Introductions." Janice Ballou. In Polling America: An Encyclopedia of Public Opinion, Volume Two, edited by Samuel J. Best and Benjamin Radcliff, 2005. This article describes survey introductions and the importance of the initial contact between interviewers and respondents. The author notes that effective introductions are critical to achieving high response rates and limiting survey costs. Effective survey introductions depend on identifying elements that can motivate participation in a given survey, using the elements to craft a script, and adapting the script to the particular survey mode being employed.

Upcoming JSM Presentations

Mathematica will be well represented at the the Joint Statistical Meetings held from August 7 to 11 in Minneapolis. This conference, the largest gathering of statisticians in North America, is held jointly with the American Statistical Association, the International Biometric Society, the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, and the Statistical Society of Canada. Click here for a list of our statistical experts who will be presenting their work at this conference.