We all want it, but we don't know what it is: toward a standard of affordability for health insurance premiums

The 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (P.L. 111-148), or ACA, requires that U.S. citizens either purchase health insurance or pay a fine. To offset the financial burden for lower-income households, it also provides subsidies to ensure that health insurance premiums are affordable. However, relatively little work has been done on how such affordability standards should be set. The existing literature on affordability is not grounded in social norms and has methodological and theoretical flaws. To address these issues, we developed a series of hypothetical vignettes in which individual and household sociodemographic characteristics were varied. We then convened a panel of eighteen experts with extensive experience in affordability standards to evaluate the extent to which each vignette character could afford to pay for one of two health insurance plans. The panel varied with respect to political ideology and discipline. We find that there was considerable disagreement about how affordability is defined. There was also disagreement about what might be included in an affordability standard, with substantive debate surrounding whether savings, debt, education, or single parenthood is relevant. There was also substantial variation in experts' assessed affordability scores. Nevertheless, median expert affordability assessments were not far from those of ACA.     

How Do I Feel About Feelings? Emotion Socialization in Families of Depressed and Healthy Adolescents

Emotional and cognitive changes that occur during adolescence set the stage for the development of adaptive or maladaptive beliefs about emotions. Although research suggests that parents’ behaviors and beliefs about emotions relate to children’s emotional abilities, few studies have looked at parental socialization of children’s emotions, particularly in families with depressed adolescents. The present study examined associations between parent and adolescent meta-emotion philosophies (MEP), defined as thoughts, reactions, and feelings about their own emotions. Additionally, adolescent depressive status was tested as a moderator of relationships between parents’ and adolescents’ MEP. One hundred and 52 adolescents, aged 14–18 (65.8% female), and their parents (148 mothers, 106 fathers) participated in a study on emotion socialization in families of depressed and healthy adolescents. Depressed adolescents (n = 75) and matched healthy adolescents (n = 77) were recruited based on research criteria for mental health status. The sample was largely Caucasian (82%) and of middle socioeconomic class status. Results indicated that mothers’ and fathers’ MEP about their children’s emotions were associated with adolescents’ MEP, although parents’ MEP about their own emotions was unrelated to adolescents’ MEP. Fathers’ MEP about children’s emotions made unique contributions to adolescents’ MEP across both adolescent groups. Adolescents’ depressive status moderated the relationship between mothers’ and adolescents’ MEP such that mothers’ MEP was particularly relevant for depressed adolescents. The continued influence of parents in the emotional lives of adolescents is discussed as well as differences in emotion socialization in families with depressed and healthy adolescents.     

The selling of the President 2004: a marketing perspective

• George W. Bush won the 2004 US Presidential election despite the facts of one thousand people losing their life in the Iraq war, the highest rate of increase in unemployment in 70 years and a vitriolic propaganda campaign (Michael Moore, etc.) against him. This case study seeks to explain the success through the prism of marketing theory and conceptual structures, that is, that the Bush team had a superior communications strategy and, within those parameters, superior marketing elements. Thus we seek to surface and integrate a number of causal explanations for his victory that arose from a political marketing orientation, specifically the offer of a ‘coherent narrative’; the conduct of a ‘permanent campaign’; more effective negative advertising (especially by pro‐Bush 527 groups), targeting and packaging; the success of the late campaign ‘big tent’ ploy. None of this however seeks to exclude the more purely political explanations for his success (located in such phenomena as the mobilization of the ‘Christian Right’ and the continuity to the aura attached to the ‘911 President’); nor is the application of marketing thought to political contexts treated uncritically.
• A further aim is to introduce political marketing modes of analysis to a political science audience—not to present them as a new ‘correctness’, for they are certainly vulnerable to challenge, but rather to precipitate more of an intellectual exchange between these two disciplines.

Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Fracture patterns on the infant porcine skull following severe blunt impact

The objective of this study was to document patterns of fracture on infant porcine skulls aged 2-28 days (n = 57) because of a single, high energy blunt impact to the parietal bone with rigid (nondeformable) and compliant (deformable) interfaces. Fracture patterns were mapped using Geographic Information System software. For the same generated impact force, the rigid interface produced more fractures than the compliant interface for all ages. This study also showed that this increased level of impact energy versus an earlier study using a lower energy resulted in new sites of fracture initiation and also caused previously defined fractures that propagate into an adjacent bone. Several unique characteristics of bone and diastatic fracture were documented as a function of specimen age, impact energy, and interface. These data describe some baseline characteristics of skull fracture using an animal model that may help guide future studies from forensic case files.     

European political cooperation and Southern Africa

Since around the turn of the century, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) has suffered fundamental challenges from several quarters, which has led to a number of proposals to reinforce the non-proliferation regime. Among the most effective are a ban on sensitive nuclear transfers and the universalisation of the Additional Protocol. The former proposal, although not agreed upon in the NSG, has been virtually realised as a moratorium within the G-8 framework. It would be advisable for the G-8 to do the same with regard to the latter proposal.     

The Development and Application of Random Match Probabilities to Firearm and Toolmark Identification

The field of firearms and toolmark analysis has encountered deep scrutiny of late, stemming from a handful of voices, primarily in the law and statistical communities. While strong scrutiny is a healthy and necessary part of any scientific endeavor, much of the current criticism leveled at firearm and toolmark analysis is, at best, misinformed and, at worst, punditry. One of the most persistent criticisms stems from the view that as the field lacks quantified random match probability data (or at least a firm statistical model) with which to calculate the probability of a false match, all expert testimony concerning firearm and toolmark identification or source attribution is unreliable and should be ruled inadmissible. However, this critique does not stem from the hard work of actually obtaining data and performing the scientific research required to support or reject current findings in the literature. Although there are sound reasons (described herein) why there is currently no unifying probabilistic model for the comparison of striated and impressed toolmarks as there is in the field of forensic DNA profiling, much statistical research has been, and continues to be, done to aid the criminal justice system. This research has thus far shown that error rate estimates for the field are very low, especially when compared to other forms of judicial error. The first purpose of this paper is to point out the logical fallacies in the arguments of a small group of pundits, who advocate a particular viewpoint but cloak it as fact and research. The second purpose is to give a balanced review of the literature regarding random match probability models and statistical applications that have been carried out in forensic firearm and toolmark analysis.     

Overview of: “The Impact of Drug Market Pulling Levers Policing on Neighborhood Violence: An Evaluation of the High Point Drug Market Intervention”

Research Summary Pulling levers policing draws upon the focused deterrence framework, which has shown considerable promise when directed at youth, gun, and gang offenders. However, much less is known about the viability of pulling levers when applied to different contexts as well as to diverse groups of offenders. We examine the High Point (North Carolina) Drug Market Intervention (DMI), the first site to use pulling levers as a place-based policing approach to disrupt a series of open-air drug markets across the city. Eleven years of longitudinal data are analyzed by using difference-in-difference panel regression analyses combined with finite mixture estimation as a means to test for divergence in violent crime patterns. Several key, although inconsistent, findings are presented. First, we found a statistically significant reduction in violent offenses in specific high-crime places (i.e., high-trajectory census blocks) located across the different targeted neighborhoods compared with the remainder of High Point, and relative to comparable nontargeted areas. Second, the citywide violent crime rate actually increased after a series of interventions unfolded, which may suggest limitations with the approach. Finally, trend analyses indicated the strategy had different levels of violent crime impact throughout unique geographic contexts. Policy Implications Rather than arresting every offender identified as having participated in illicit drug trafficking across various geographic contexts within the city, officials in High Point decided to invite low-risk drug offenders to community notification sessions in order to change their perceived risk of punishment as well as to mobilize community members across the different targeted neighborhoods. The suggestive evidence of potential, although limited, violent crime impact illustrates that this type of policing strategy may hold considerable promise. This interpretation gains credence when considered with prior evaluations of the DMI approach that illustrated the potential for reducing drug-related crime and in light of reports of improved police–community relations. The inconsistent findings across all locations and the overall city increase in violent crime toward the end of the study period, however, raise several concerns when interpreting study results. Additionally, our findings suggest that further replications should include systematic problem-identification, process measures, and more precise research designs.