Ian Plewis

Does health-selective mobility account for socioeconomic differences in health? Evidence from England and Wales, 1971 to 1991

The paper uses data from a sample of 1 percent of the male population of England and Wales to examine the contribution of social mobility between the censuses of 1971 and 1981 to socioeconomic differences in health. Compared to others in their social class of origin, men who had been downwardly mobile were more likely, and the upwardly mobile were less likely, to report a limiting long-term illness. However, when compared to others in their classes of destination, those who moved down reported less illness, and the upwardly mobile reported more. Prevalence of ill health in mobile men was somewhere between that in the group they left and the group they joined. Social mobility was a common event and, combined with existing socioeconomic differences in health, it acted to constrain rather than to increase these differences.

Associations between Preschool Reading Related Skills and later Reading Achievement

This paper is about the extent of childrens reading related knowledge and associations with reading achievement at seven years. It presents results, from a major longitudinal study of childrens p...

Assessing and Understanding the Educational Progress of Children from Different Ethnic Groups

Differences between ethnic groups in educational attainment and progress are considered. Official statistics do not give a clear picture of the situation, and are particularly deficient in ignoring sex differences within ethnic groups. Explanatory models for understanding differences are discussed and attention is drawn to the limitations of approaches which attempt to account for ethnic group differences by socio-economic disadvantage. The value of longitudinal data and the advantages of a multilevel model approach are both emphasised. An important theme of the paper is that technical statistical issues cannot be separated from substantive educational issues, or from political issues, or from the evidence on racism in British society.

THE USES AND ABUSES OF RELIABILITY MEASURES IN DEVELOPMENTAL MEDICINE

affected by mild and severe handicap. The beautiful symmetry of the distribution curve is becoming irrelevant. HAGBERG and colleagues recently reported studies of children with mild mental handicap and judged that 23 per cent had significant evidence of prenatal syndromes’O. Perinatal factors were held to be responsible in 18 per cent. The preponderance of males with handicap, if explicable by abnormality of the x chromosome, seems to involve more than one condition: a small number of cases with physical stigmata and severe mental handicap have been recognised, whereas in other cases the same chromosomal defect is not associated with these signs. In the family studies by HERBST and MILLER”, it is not clear whether perinatal factors-other than prematurity-were taken into account in ‘non-specific’ mental retardation. One is left with the suspicion that this susceptibility of the male infant is merely part of the spectrum of disadvantage which has its maximum impact during the perinatal period, as a compound of social, environmental and biochemical factors which result in physical and mental handicap or death.

Social Disadvantage, Educational Attainment and Ethnicity: a comment

Abstract The relationships between educational attainment and social disadvantage for different ethnic groups, presented by Brewer & Haslum (1986), are reconsidered. Their assertion that indicators of social disadvantage are not associated with attainment for black children is shown to be based on a number of unsound statistical and methodological procedures. Data from a study of younger children in Inner London are presented which do show an association which is the same for both black and white children. But more data are needed for a more complete understanding of these associations.

Analyzing Indian farmer suicide rates

Arguments about the causes of Indian farmer suicides have been widely aired in recent years, both in the media and in academic papers. It is plausible to suppose, as Carleton (1) does, that climate change has an indirect causal effect on the farmer suicide rate via reduced crop yields and increasing debt. It is, however, much less plausible to … [↵][1]1Email: ian.plewis{at}manchester.ac.uk. [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1

SOME SIMPLE APPROACHES TO THE ANALYSIS OF DICHOTOMOUS LONGITUDINAL DATA

Longitudinal data are essential to a proper understanding of developmental processes. Of course it is possible to examine differences in means or prevalences for different ages with cross-sectional data, but these cannot provide any information about the way individuals develop and change. One way to avoid the complexities of longitudinal studies is to collect data retrospectively within a cross-sectional study, but unfortunately retrospective data are often so distorted by memory errors of various kinds as to be worthless. The design, conduct and analysis of longitudinal studies can lead to considerable problems, and in this brief article I want to consider and illustrate one approach to the analysis of longitudinal data.

Using Response Propensity Models to Improve the Quality of Response Data in Longitudinal Studies

Abstract We review two approaches for improving the response in longitudinal (birth cohort) studies based on response propensity models: strategies for sample maintenance in longitudinal studies and improving the representativeness of the respondents over time through interventions. Based on estimated response propensities, we examine the effectiveness of different re-issuing strategies using Representativity Indicators (R-indicators). We also combine information from the Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve with a cost function to determine an optimal cut point for the propensity not to respond in order to target interventions efficiently at cases least likely to respond. We use the first four waves of the UK Millennium Cohort Study to illustrate these methods. Our results suggest that it is worth re-issuing to the field nonresponding cases from previous waves although re-issuing refusals might not be the best use of resources. Adapting the sample to target subgroups for re-issuing from wave to wave will improve the representativeness of response. However, in situations where discrimination between respondents and nonrespondents is not strong, it is doubtful whether specific interventions to reduce nonresponse will be cost effective.

Planning pre-school services: A socio-demographic analysis☆

Abstract Data were collected from mothers with a child under 5 living in 3 small areas of Inner London. Information was provided by them about various aspects of pre-school provision and these were related to a number of socio-demographic factors. The concepts of demand, need, desire and take-up were discussed in the context of preschool services and it was shown by using log-linear models that desire for pre-school provision could be efficiently predicted by a combination of these socio-demographic variables. Some emphasis was placed on the use of log-linear models with sparse data and the models were replicated on fresh data.