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Estimated Effect (estimated + effect)
Selected AbstractsSerotonin and dopamine transporter binding in children with autism determined by SPECTDEVELOPMENTAL MEDICINE & CHILD NEUROLOGY, Issue 8 2008Ismo Makkonen MD Disturbances in the serotonergic system have been recognized in autism. To investigate the association between serotonin and dopamine transporters and autism, we studied 15 children (14 males, one female; mean age 8y 8mo [SD 3y 10mo]) with autism and 10 non-autistic comparison children (five males, five females; mean age 9y 10mo [SD 2y 8mo]) using single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) with [123I] nor-,-CIT. The children, with autism were studied during light sedation. They showed reduced serotonin transporter (SERT) binding capacity in the medial frontal cortex, midbrain, and temporal lobe areas. However, after correction due to the estimated effect of sedation, the difference remained significant only in the medial frontal cortex area (p=0.002). In the individuals with autism dopamine transporter (DAT) binding did not differ from that of the comparison group. The results indicate that SERT binding capacity is disturbed in autism. The reduction is more evident in adolescence than in earlier childhood. The low SERT binding reported here and the low serotonin synthesis capacity shown elsewhere may indicate maturation of a lesser number of serotonergic nerve terminals in individuals with autism. [source] Measuring the effect of husband's health on wife's labor supplyHEALTH ECONOMICS, Issue 6 2006Michele J. SiegelArticle first published online: 31 JAN 200 Abstract A sizable proportion of women remain married well into late life and an increasing proportion of them participate in the labor force. Since women tend to marry men older than themselves and men tend to experience serious illnesses at younger ages than women, women frequently witness declining health in their husbands. This is likely to affect a wife's labor,leisure trade-off in offsetting ways. Prior studies have not sought to disentangle the effect of a husband's poor health on his wife's reservation wage from the income effect of his ill health. We argue that, if we control for husband's earnings, the coefficient of husband's health in models of his wife's labor force participation (and hours of work) will reflect, in part, her preference over whether to decrease her labor supply to provide health care for her husband or whether to instead increase it to purchase this care in the market. However, husband's earnings are likely to be endogenous in these models due to unobserved characteristics common to husbands and wives. We find that the estimated effect of husband's health depends on whether we instrument for husband's earnings and on the health measure used. This is indicative of the importance of using a variety of health measures and controlling for husband's earnings, and their endogeneity, in future research on the effect of husband's health on wife's labor supply. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Welfare Reform and Health Insurance of ImmigrantsHEALTH SERVICES RESEARCH, Issue 3 2005Neeraj Kaushal Objective. To investigate the effect of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) on the health insurance coverage of foreign- and U.S.-born families headed by low-educated women. Data Source. Secondary data from the March series of the Current Population Surveys for 1994,2001. Study Design. Multivariate regression methods and a pre- and post-test with comparison group research design (difference-in-differences) are used to estimate the effect of welfare reform on the health insurance coverage of low-educated, foreign- and U.S.-born unmarried women and their children. Heterogenous responses by states to create substitute Temporary Aid to Needy Families or Medicaid programs for newly arrived immigrants are used to investigate whether the estimated effect of PRWORA on newly arrived immigrants is related to the actual provisions of the law, or the result of fears engendered by the law. Principal Findings. PRWORA increased the proportion of uninsured among low-educated, foreign-born, unmarried women by 9.9,10.7 percentage points. In contrast, the effect of PRWORA on the health insurance coverage of similar U.S.-born women is negligible. PRWORA also increased the proportion of uninsured among foreign-born children living with low-educated, single mothers by 13.5 percentage points. Again, the policy had little effect on the health insurance coverage of the children of U.S.-born, low-educated single mothers. There is some evidence that the fear and uncertainty engendered by the law had an effect on immigrant health insurance coverage. Conclusions. This research demonstrates that PRWORA adversely affected the health insurance of low-educated, unmarried, immigrant women and their children. In the case of unmarried women, it may be partly because the jobs that they obtained in response to PRWORA were less likely to provide health insurance. The research also suggests that PRWORA may have engendered fear among immigrants and dampened their enrollment in safety net programs. [source] A parallel analysis of individual and ecological data on residential radon and lung cancer in south-west EnglandJOURNAL OF THE ROYAL STATISTICAL SOCIETY: SERIES A (STATISTICS IN SOCIETY), Issue 1 2001Sarah Darby Parallel individual and ecological analyses of data on residential radon have been performed using information on cases of lung cancer and population controls from a recent study in south-west England. For the individual analysis the overall results indicated that the relative risk of lung cancer at 100 Bq m,3 compared with at 0 Bq m,3 was 1.12 (95% confidence interval (0.99, 1.27)) after adjusting for age, sex, smoking, county of residence and social class. In the ecological analysis substantial bias in the estimated effect of radon was present for one of the two counties involved unless an additional variable, urban,rural status, was included in the model, although this variable was not an important confounder in the individual level analysis. Most of the methods that have been recommended for overcoming the limitations of ecological studies would not in practice have proved useful in identifying this variable as an appreciable source of bias. [source] Testing for Interaction in Binary Logit and Probit Models: Is a Product Term Essential?AMERICAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, Issue 1 2010William D. Berry Political scientists presenting binary dependent variable (BDV) models often hypothesize that variables interact to influence the probability of an event, Pr(Y). The current typical approach to testing such hypotheses is (1) estimate a logit or probit model with a product term, (2) test the hypothesis by determining whether the coefficient for this term is statistically significant, and (3) characterize the nature of any interaction detected by describing how the estimated effect of one variable on Pr(Y) varies with the value of another. This approach makes a statistically significant product term necessary to support the interaction hypothesis. We show that a statistically significant product term is neither necessary nor sufficient for variables to interact meaningfully in influencing Pr(Y). Indeed, even when a logit or probit model contains no product term, the effect of one variable on Pr(Y) may be strongly related to the value of another. We present a strategy for testing for interaction in a BDV model, including guidance on when to include a product term. [source] Pre-operative forced-air warming as a method of anxiolysisANAESTHESIA, Issue 10 2009R. J. Wen Summary We tested the hypothesis that pre-operative forced-air warming is as effective for anxiolysis as intravenous midazolam, using a blinded, placebo controlled factorial design. One hundred and twenty patients were randomly assigned to cotton blanket and saline injection (n = 30), forced-air warmer and saline injection (n = 30), midazolam 30 ,g.kg,1 and cotton blanket (n = 30), and forced-air warmer and midazolam 30 ,g.kg,1 (n = 30). Patients completed visual analogue scales for anxiety and thermal comfort, and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, at baseline and after 20 min. The estimated effect of midazolam on visual analogue scores for anxiety was ,10 (95% CI ,3 to ,18; p = 0.007) and on state anxiety was ,5 (95% CI ,7 to ,4; p = 0.03). Warming had no influence on visual analogue scores for anxiety (p = 0.50) or state anxiety (p = 0.33), but its estimated effect on thermal comfort was +23 (95% CI 19,27; p < 0.0001). There was no interaction between midazolam and warming. Pre-operative warming was not equivalent to midazolam for anxiolysis and cannot be recommended solely for this purpose. [source] | ||||||||||