Adverse Childhood Experiences Affect Health Risk Behaviors and Chronic Health of Iowans

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), include childhood abuse and household dysfunction, and are associated with a variety of behavioral risk factors and chronic illnesses in adulthood. This study replicates the original ACEs study (Felitti et al. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 14(4), 245–258. doi: 10.1016/s0749-3797(98)00017-8, 1998) with a representative sample of adults in Iowa. Data come from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) survey of 2012 when ACE assessments were first introduced in Iowa by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2012). The majority of adults in Iowa (58%) have experienced at least one ACE, and depending on the type of ACE, co-occurrence of ACEs ranged from 76% to 97%. Health risk behaviors in adulthood, such as drinking, smoking, and obesity were significantly related to the number of ACEs experienced. ACEs were also associated with depression. Chronic health outcomes including heart disease, stroke, and COPD were also significantly predicted by the number of ACEs. This replication study demonstrates that the need for intervention and prevention programs in Iowa are similar to the needs found in other states in the U.S. for addressing the consequences of ACEs.     

Separated Powers in the United States: The Ideology of Agencies,Presidents, and Congress

Government agencies service interest groups, advocate policies, provide advice to elected officials, and create and implement public policy. Scholars have advanced theories to explain the role of agencies in American politics, but efforts to test these theories are hampered by the inability to systematically measure agency preferences. We present a method for measuring agency ideology that yields ideal point estimates of individual bureaucrats and agencies that are directly comparable with those of other political actors. These estimates produce insights into the nature of the bureaucratic state and provide traction on a host of questions about American politics. We discuss what these estimates reveal about the political environment of bureaucracy and their potential for testing theories of political institutions. We demonstrate their utility by testing key propositions from Gailmard and Patty's (2007) influential model of political control and endogenous expertise development.     

Theft,Gift-Giving,and Reciprocity: A South African Experiment

Abstract

This paper uses a taking game to examine how South African subjects alter the amount they choose to ‘steal’ in response to a resource transfer from the potential victim. Any positive resource transfer significantly reduces the amount taken. ‘Small’ transfers reduce a victim’s total losses, including the transfer and the subsequent ‘theft’. Larger transfers increase a victim’s total losses. This study failed to find that differences in the frame of a transfer (i.e. gift, as a bribe, or as a payment) influenced a taker’s response to the transfer.     

Expert Opinion, Agency Characteristics, and Agency Preferences

David E. Lewis Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08540 e-mail: delewis{at}princeton.edu e-mail: clinton{at}princeton.edu (corresponding author) The study of bureaucracies and their relationship to politicalactors is central to understanding the policy process in theUnited States. Studying this aspect of American politics isdifficult because theories of agency behavior, effectiveness,and control often require measures of administrative agencies'policy preferences, and appropriate measures are hard to findfor a broad spectrum of agencies. We propose a method for measuringagency preferences based upon an expert survey of agency preferencesfor 82 executive agencies in existence between 1988 and 2005.We use a multirater item response model to provide a principledstructure for combining subjective ratings based on scholarlyand journalistic expertise with objective data on agency characteristics.We compare the resulting agency preference estimates and standarderrors to existing alternative measures, discussing both theadvantages and limitations of the method. Authors' note: We thank Tom Hammond, George Krause, and JoshuaTucker for helpful comments. We are grateful to Simon Jackmanand Shawn Treier for generously providing their code and oursurvey respondents for their time and expertise.