A discrete choice experiment investigating preferences for funding drugs used to treat orphan diseases: an exploratory study

Policy debate about funding criteria for drugs used to treat rare, orphan diseases is gaining prominence. This study presents evidence from a discrete choice experiment using a convenience sample of university students to investigate individual preferences regarding public funding for drugs used to treat rare diseases and common diseases. This pilot study finds that: other things equal, the respondents do not prefer to have the government spend more for drugs used to treat rare diseases; that respondents are not willing to pay more per life year gained for a rare disease than a common disease; and that respondents weigh relevant attributes of the coverage decisions (e.g. costs, disease severity and treatment effectiveness) similarly for both rare and common diseases. The results confirm the importance of severity and treatment effectiveness in preferences for public funding. Although this is the first study of its kind, the results send a cautionary message regarding the special treatment of orphan drugs in coverage decision-making.     

Exposure to intimate partner violence, peer relations, and risk for internalizing behaviors: a prospective longitudinal study

The present study examines the quality of peer relations as a mediator between exposure to IPV (intimate partner violence) and internalizing behaviors in a sample of 129 preadolescents and adolescents (ages 10-18), who were interviewed via telephone as part of a multigenerational, prospective, longitudinal study. Relational victimization is also examined as a moderator of IPV exposure on internalizing behaviors. Results demonstrate a significant association of exposure to severe IPV and internalizing behaviors. Relational victimization is found to moderate the effects of exposure to severe IPV on internalizing behaviors. The present findings suggest that the effects of exposure to IPV had a particularly important effect on the risk for internalizing problems if the adolescent also experienced relational victimization. Conversely, the receipt of prosocial behaviors buffer against the effects of IPV exposure on internalizing symptoms in teen girls.     

When Do Good Things Lift You Up? Dampening,Enhancing, and Uplifts in Relation To Depressive and Anhedonic Symptoms in Early Adolescence

Longitudinal studies examining the role of response styles to positive affect (i.e., dampening and enhancing) for depressive symptoms have yielded inconsistent results. We examined concurrent and prospective relations of dampening and enhancing with depressive and anhedonic symptoms, and whether these relations depend on the frequency of uplifts. Early adolescents (N?=?674, 51.6% girls, M_age?=?12.7 years, range 11.3–14.9) completed questionnaires three times (one-year intervals). Dampening interacted with daily uplifts predicting concurrent depressive symptoms. Dampening was unrelated to depressive and anhedonic symptoms one year later. High dampening and low enhancing predicted relative increases in anhedonia over two years. Relationships did not differ for girls and boys. Therapeutic interventions designed to promote adaptive responding to positive affect may, thus, reduce anhedonia in adolescence.     

The Age Structure-Crime Rate Relationship: Solving a Long-Standing Puzzle

Objectives

Develop the concept of differential institutional engagement and test its ability to explain discrepant findings regarding the relationship between the age structure and homicide rates across ecological studies of crime. We hypothesize that differential degrees of institutional engagement—youths with ties to mainstream social institutions such as school, work or the military on one end of the spectrum and youths without such bonds on the other end—account for the direction of the relationship between homicide rates and age structure (high crime prone ages, such as 15–29).

Methods

Cross sectional, Ordinary Least Squares regression analyses using robust standard errors are conducted using large samples of cities characterized by varying degrees of youths’ differential institutional engagement for the years 1980, 1990 and 2000. The concept is operationalized with the percent of the population enrolled in college and the percent of 16–19 year olds who are simultaneously not enrolled in school, not in the labor market (not in the labor force or unemployed), and not in the military.

Results

Consistent and invariant results emerged. Positive effects of age structure on homicide rates are found in cities that have high percentages of disengaged youth and negative effects are found among cities characterized with high percentages of youth participating in mainstream social institutions.

Conclusions

This conceptualization of differential institutional engagement explains the discrepant findings in prior studies, and the findings demonstrate the influence of these contextual effects and the nature of the age structure-crime relationship.     

Coping Among Adult Female Victims of Domestic Violence

This paper examines the current literature regarding coping among battered women. It considers a number of contextual factors that are related to women's choices in coping with partner abuse, including factors related to the relationship (e.g., frequency and severity of abuse, length of relationship) and women's resources (e.g., social support, financial resources). Relationships between different forms of coping and psychological outcomes are also examined. As the research in domestic violence coping is somewhat lacking in coherence, theories, and models from the broader coping literature are used to organize the findings from the domestic violence field. Methodological concerns, such as research methods, measurement issues, and sampling, are raised throughout the paper. Suggestions for future research are made.     

How Do Female and Male Faculty Members Construct Job Satisfaction? The Roles of Perceived Institutional Leadership and Mentoring and their Mediating Processes

In this study we examine how a sample of 248 male and female professors at a Midwestern private research university construct their academic job satisfaction. Our findings indicate that both women and men perceive that their job satisfaction is influenced by the institutional leadership and mentoring they receive, but only as mediated by the two key academic processes of access to internal academic resources (including research-supportive workloads) and internal relational supports from a collegial and inclusive immediate work environment. Gender differences emerged in the strengths of the perceived paths leading to satisfaction: women’s job satisfaction derived more from their perceptions of the internal relational supports than the academic resources they received, whereas men’s job satisfaction resulted equally from their perceptions of internal academic resources and internal relational supports received. Implications for leadership and institutional practices are drawn from the findings.