Gillian Stevens

Utility of telephone survey methods in population-based health studies of older adults: an example from the Alberta Older Adult Health Behavior (ALERT) study

BackgroundRandom digit dialing is often used in public health research initiatives to accrue and establish a study sample; however few studies have fully described the utility of this approach. The primary objective of this paper was to describe the implementation and utility of using random digit dialing and Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI) for sampling, recruitment and data collection in a large population-based study of older adults [Alberta Older Adult Health Behavior (ALERT) study].MethodsUsing random digit dialing, older adults (> = 55 years) completed health behavior and outcome and demographic measures via CATI. After completing the CATI, participants were invited to receive a step pedometer and waist circumference tape measure via mail to gather objectively derived ambulatory activity and waist circumference assessments.ResultsOverall, 36,000 telephone numbers were called of which 7,013 were deemed eligible for the study. Of those, 4,913 (70.1%) refused to participate in the study and 804 (11.4%) participants were not included due to a variety of call dispositions (e.g., difficult to reach, full quota for region). A total of 1,296 participants completed telephone interviews (18.5% of those eligible and 3.6% of all individuals approached). Overall, 22.8% of households did not have an age 55+ resident and 13.6% of individuals refused to participate, Average age was 66.5 years, and 43% were male. A total of 1,081 participants (83.4%) also submitted self-measured ambulatory activity (i.e., via step pedometer) and anthropometric data (i.e., waist circumference). With the exception of income (18.7%), the rate of missing data for demographics, health behaviors, and health measures was minimal (<1%).ConclusionsOlder adults are willing to participate in telephone-based health surveys when randomly contacted. Researchers can use this information to evaluate the feasibility and the logistics of planned studies using a similar population and study design.

Marrying into the American Population: Pathways into Cross-Nativity Marriages

Cross-nativity marriages have been a neglected dimension of intermarriage patterns in the U.S., although they provide a vehicle for the easy social and political integration of the foreign-born spouse and the couples children. We first present U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service data to show that cross-nativity marriages are common among migrants entering the country and appear to be increasing over time. The following analyses based on 2008 American Community Survey data imply several pathways into cross-nativity marriages that are strongly gendered and race specific and that involve major social institutions such as the higher educational system and the U.S. military.

Trajectories of English Acquisition among Foreign‐born Spanish‐Language Children in the United States

The rapidity with which immigrant children learn the dominant language of their country of residence has important short-term and long-term consequences for their educational achievements and for their future. In this paper I use US Census data to model trajectories of English acquisition among foreign-born children living in Spanish-language households. The results show, as expected, that childrens English proficiency increases with length of residence in the United States. However, the results also show a clear trend by age at arrival. The older children are when they arrive in the United States, the less rapid their progress in acquiring proficiency in English.

Who Arrived First? The Timing of Arrival among Young Immigrant Wives and Husbands

The strongest predictor of immigrants’ adaptation to the American context is the length of time that they have lived in the United States. Scholars often assume, however, that immediate members of foreign-born families, especially husbands and wives and their foreign-born children, all arrive in the US at the same time and thus have lived there for the same length of time. Using the 2000 US census data, we investigate this assumption and analyse the sequence of migration among young married immigrant husbands and wives. Results show that over a half of married foreign-born men and women had arrived in the US in different years and that the sequence is gendered, with men more often arriving before the women. These patterns differ by country of origin. In general, the earlier arrival is older, and more likely to be employed than the later arrival, whether the earlier arrival is the husband or the wife.

Maintaining one language while learning another: Moroccan children in Belgium

ABSTRACT Whether children in migrant households maintain proficiency in their heritage language (HL) may affect their attachment to their cultural heritage, while the extent to which they acquire proficiency in the new language of their destination strongly conditions their success in the country’s educational and occupational institutions. In this paper, we investigate the extent to which children of Moroccan heritage living in Antwerp, Belgium maintain their proficiency in their parents’ HL and the extent to which they learn and speak Dutch. Our research design draws from family language policy to consider how elements of the children’s family background, language practices by the parents and siblings, attitudes towards the HL and Dutch, and language management, affect the children’s levels of proficiency in each language. Based on data for over 300 children, the results show that the children’s proficiency in their HL is strongly affected by whether the parents use and value the HL, the mother is proficient in the HL, and by opportunities to use the HL outside of the household. In contrast, the children’s proficiency in Dutch is affected by the mother’s proficiency in Dutch and by the languages used by the other children in the household.

Marriage Vows and Racial Choices

by Jessica Vasquez-TokosNew York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2017ISBN 978-0087154-868-9Softcover,

Measuring race and ethnicity in the censuses of Australia, Canada, and the United States: Parallels and paradoxes

35, 388 pp.