SRC Summer Internship Program

Research Symposium

 Tuesday
 July 27, 2010
 12:30-2:00 p.m.
 ISR Building,
Room 6050

The Survey Research Center is an equal opportunity employer

that values diversity in the workplace.
1
 Agenda
 Welcome
 Background
 Overall Purpose of
Symposium
 10 Minute Presentations
(wide spectrum of topics)
 Symposium Format
 Closing Remarks
 General Q/A

2
 Acknowledgements
 Sponsors:
 Health and Retirement Study (3)
 Life Course Development Program
 Survey Methodology Program
 Quantitative Methodology Program
 Social Environment and Health Program
 Partners:
 Senior Staff Advisory Committee
 SRC Administrators
 Summer Institute & Program in Survey Methodology
 Survey Research Operations
 Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research
 ISR and SRC Human Resources
 SRC Computing
 SRC Director’s Office
3
Work Ability Among
Older Adults
in the U.S.
Melissa Worst
The University of Detroit Mercy

Gwenith G. Fisher, PhD

Health and Retirement Study

4
 Overview
 Work Ability
 Promotion of Work Ability
 Work Ability Index
 Finnish
 Adapted version in the HRS

 Preliminary Results
 Conclusions
 Future Research
5
 Work Ability
 Definition: a discrepancy between
expected and actual behavior; a
discrepancy between the worker’s abilities
and job demands.
 Finnish researchers - 1981
 Work ability – the need to determine how
to keep ageing workers in the workforce.

6
Tuomi, Ilmarinen, Martikainen, Aalto, and Klockars (1997)
 Why We Care
 The proportion of older workers in the
workforce is growing.
 By 2030 - 65+ will increase by 50%.
 Number of workers aged 25 to 54 will
increase by only 12%. (U.S. Census Bureau, 2004)

 Whether people can work and how well

they can perform their jobs.

7
 Work Ability Cont.
 Researchers have differentiated:
 Worker’s ability – individual physical, mental, and
social capacities.
 Work Ability – the worker’s qualification to manage
occupational demands.
 If the demands are different from the worker’s
qualifications, then strain occurs.
 Strain – Physiological, psychological, and
behavioral changes.
Ilmarinen, Tuomi, Eskelinen, Nygard, Huuhtanen, and Klockars (1991)
8
 Promotion of Work Ability
 Activities which encourage higher levels of
work ability.
 Should focus on altering:
 Work tasks
 Work demands and the environment

 Work organization and the work community

 Health and functional capacity

 Professional competencies
Tuomi, Huuhtanen, Nykyri, and Ilmarinen (2001)

9
 Work Ability Index
 Finnish developed a measure for work ability.
 Seven items - assess work related capacities
 Predicts early departure from the workforce
 Index scores = the sum of the scores from seven
items:
 Poor work ability = 7 - 27
 Moderate work ability = 28 - 36
 Good work ability = 37 - 43
 Excellent work ability = 44 - 49
Ilmarinen, Tuomi, and Klockars (1997)

10
 Work Ability Index
1) Subjective estimation of current work ability
compared with lifetime best.
 0= Very poor  10= Very good
2) Subjective work ability in relation to both
physical and mental demands of the work.
 2= Very poor  10= Very good
3) Number of current diseases diagnosed by a
physician.
 1=5 or more, 2= 4, 3= 3, 4= 2, 5= 1, 7= No disease

Tuomi, Vanhala, Nykyri, and Janhonen (2004),

Tuomi, Ilmarinen, Martikainen, Aalto, and Klockars (1997),
Ilmarinen, Tuomi, and Klockars (1997)
11
 Work Ability Index
4) Subjective estimation of work impairment due
to diseases.
 1= Fully impaired  6= No impairment

5) Sickness absence during the past year.

 1= 100 days or more, 2= 25-99 days, 3= 10-24 days, 4= 1-9
days, 5= 0 days

Tuomi, Vanhala, Nykyri, and Janhonen (2004),

Tuomi, Ilmarinen, Martikainen, Aalto, and Klockars (1997),
Ilmarinen, Tuomi, and Klockars (1997)
12
 Work Ability Index
6) Own prognosis of work ability after two
years.
 1= Hardly able to work, 4= Not sure, 7= Fairly sure

7) Subjective assessment of mental

resources (psychological resources).
 1= Very poor  4= Very good

Tuomi, Vanhala, Nykyri, and Janhonen (2004),

Tuomi, Ilmarinen, Martikainen, Aalto, and Klockars (1997),
Ilmarinen, Tuomi, and Klockars (1997)
13
 Adapted Work Ability Index
 2008 Participant Lifestyle Questionnaire
 Also called Psychosocial Leave-behind
 Health and Retirement Study
 Surveys a sample of older Americans

 Four Items
 Aligns with Finnish Work Ability Index

14
A.

B.

C.

D.

15
 Preliminary Analysis Results
Characteristics of Respondents from the 2008 Health
and Retirement Study who are Age Eligible and
Working
N 1837
Age M=63.2 years (SD=6.0)
White 89.0%
Female 54.2%
Number of Years in School M=13.9 years (SD=2.6)
Hours worked per week M=36.2 (SD=14.1)
Overall work ability score (0-10) M=8.61 (SD=1.5)
Work ability sum score (0-40) M=34.9 (SD=5.2)
16
 Preliminary Analysis Results
Table 3: Results of Hierarchical Multiple Regression Analysis - Work
Ability (Q47a)
Variables Entered Std. Est. t Sig
Step 1 Age -.140 -5.95 .000
Gender .048 2.03 .043
Race -.020 -0.83 .405
Step 1 Model: R2 = .024, p < .0001
Step 2 General Health .278 11.83 .000
Step 2 Model: R2 = .100, p < .0001

17
 Conclusions
 Previously, no study has used a work ability
index with a nationally representative American
sample.
 Respondent’s health is significantly related to
their work ability.
 Not difficult to see why work ability in individuals
is important.
 Could help determine how to support worker’s health
in the US so they are better able to work longer.

18
 Future Research
 Replicating the results of other populations.
 Examining the causal relationship between
antecedents and work ability - how to improve
the working and personal lives of Americans.
 US - how work ability breaks down by
demographic characteristics and occupational
sectors.
 Master’s thesis research question: What
relationship does subjective age have with
measures of work ability?
19
 Questions

Acknowledgements:

Gwen Fisher

George Myers and Anita Johnson

SRC Interns

20
 Virtual Humans as
Survey Interviewers

Roxanne Shooshani
Survey Methodology Program
Sponsor: Dr. Fred Conrad

21
 Background
 Virtual Humans: Embodied Conversational
Agents, Animated Agents, here: Virtual
Interviewers.
 Graphical interface objects that interact
with a user on a computer; sometimes
have voice and gestures, often appearing
as humans.
 Used on website like Ikea’s and PayPal’s
for help.
 Not Avatars – there is no one operating
them “behind the scenes”.
22
Ikea’s Virtual Human, Anna

23
 Human Interviewer
Characteristics
 Race of human interviewer known to affect answers
to race-relevant questions (e.g., Davis et al., 2009).
 Both White and Black Rs report more “pro-civil
rights,” fewer racially conservative.
opinions/behaviors to Black than White interviewer.
 Gender of human interviewers known to affect
answers to gender -relevant questions (e.g., Kane &
Macauley, 1993).
 Both male and female Rs report more “pro-feminist”
answers to female than male interviewer.
 Characteristics of automated interviewing systems
are under researchers’ control.
 Do VIs produce similar effects? Is social desirability
as strong in a virtual setting vs. a real life one?
24
25
 Contributions
 Code respondents’ reasons for picking a
particular interviewing agent into logical,
organized categories for further data analysis.
 Read the 1,735 open responses and identify
possible categories of reasons.
 Collaborated with Jason Deska, a
Psychology major from Notre Dame
University.
 Perform preliminary analyses using these codes
and other data from the study.
 Conduct a literature review for background
support on the differences between human-
administered interviews and virtual-human
administered interviews. 26
Example of Open Responses
 Facial expression and voice were
appealing.
 I feel that she is more like me.

 I like blondes!

 Because she is a Black woman like

myself and she looks young and hip
but at the same time very mature.

27
 The Sixteen Categories
 Age  Race
 Comfort  Voice
 Distinctiveness  Audio
 Personality/
 Appearance
 Self-Presentation
 Human
 No Preference
 Familiarity
 Other
 Similarity to Self
 No Answer
 Gender  Attractiveness
28
 Frequencies
 How many respondents used each of
the sixteen categories to justify their
choices?

29
 Frequency of Categories Coded
P 60
E
R 50

C 40
E
N 30

T 20

C 10 Series1

O 0
D
E
D

REASONS 30
 Race of Chosen VI

90 Black
80
70 White
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Black White

31
 Conclusions
 Some analysis still remains for this study
 But it is clear that virtual interviewers can
sometimes have similar effects as human
interviewers on respondents
 Our findings are good and bad – We want to
replicate the way human interviewers engage
respondents but don't want to replicate social
desirability effects.
 Yet it can also improve future studies greatly
since it is possible to control the interviewer’s
race, gender, and quality of voice, for example.
32
 Thank You

Fred Conrad
George Myers
Anita Johnson
The Survey Methodology Program Staff
My Fellow SRC Interns
Jason Deska

33
The Michigan Study of Life After Prison

Madeline Lupei
University of Michigan
Social Environment & Health
Jeffrey Morenoff & David Harding

34
 Michigan Study of Life After Prison
 Analysis of Michigan Department of
Corrections (MDOC) administrative records
 Analysis of records of parolees released from
Michigan prisons in 2003 (population N = 11,069,
sample n=3,689)
 Purpose: understand how neighborhood context
affects recidivism, employment, and substance use
 Recidivism= criminal offenses committed by individuals
convicted of a prior offense

 Pilot Interview Study

 Semi-structured interviews of 24 parolees began in
2007 (men) and 2008 (women)
 Purpose: understand the reentry experience
35
Analysis of MDOC Administrative Records

 1/3 random sample of population of parolees

released from Michigan prisons in 2003
(N=11,064), (n=3,689)

 MDOC databases:
 Corrections Management Information Systems
(CMIS)
 Offender Management Network Information system
(OMNI)
 Parole officers’ case notes on parolees

36
Analysis of MDOC administrative records

37
38
 Geocoding Residential
Addresses

 ArcGIS
 Standardizing addresses
 Common types of
mistakes
 Washtenaw st  Washtenaw ave
 48104 48105
 Ypislanti  Ypsilanti

 Latitude and longitude

39
 What are we studying with data on
residential mobility?
 How often do parolees move?
 How much of a problem is housing instability?

 What type of neighborhoods are parolees moving

into?
 Are they ending up in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods and
being stuck there for long periods of time?

 Is there inequality among parolees in terms of the

types of neighborhoods they “attain” or how hard it is
to acquire stable housing?
 Is there inequality by race or socioeconomic status?
 What about other demographic characteristics (e.g., gender, age,
marital status)?
40
 Rates of Residential Mobility

Which parolees move more often per year?

 Parolees with substance abuse problems

 Parolees known by MDOC to be mentally ill

 Parolees who have been to prison more times

No differences by marital status, race, sex,

education and urbanicity of first address

41
Residential Mobility

42
 Neighborhood characteristics of average
Michigan resident vs average parolee
Average
Michigan
Census Characteristics Resident Average Parolee Difference
%Poor 10.8 20.5 9.7
Unemployment rate 6.2 10.4 4.2
%Households on public assistance 8.0 16.2 8.1
%Female-headed families with children 24.0 43.1 19.1
Median family income $55,137 $40,082 -$15,055
%Families with income $75k+ 29.68 17.80 -11.89
%College graduates 21.67 13.72 -7.95
%Less than H.S. education 16.88 25.45 8.57
%Professional/managerial occupations 30.02 22.58 -7.43
%Black 15.13 42.45 27.32
%Hispanic 3.24 5.64 2.40
%Foreign born 5.27 4.52 -0.75
%17 and under 26.09 27.69 1.60
%18-34 23.01 26.17 3.16
%75 or older 2.09 1.82 -0.27
%In same house 5+ years 57.22 54.31 -2.91
%Owner occupied houses 74.44 58.11 -16.33
43
Neighborhood inequality among returning parolees

 Compared to White parolees, Black parolees move

back to neighborhoods where…
 Family poverty rate is 11% higher
(only 4% higher in Washtenaw)
 Unemployment rate is 5% higher
(no significant difference in Washtenaw)
 Median income is $11,189 lower
(no significant difference in Washtenaw)
 Percent of population that is Black is 47% higher
(only %12 higher in Washtenaw)
 Number of returning parolees per capita is over
twice as high
(no significant difference in Washtenaw)
44
 Parolee Characteristics
Which parolees live in poorer neighborhoods?
 Black Parolees (big differences)
 Older Parolees
 Less Educated Parolees
 Unmarried Parolees
 Parolees with 5 or more prison stays

No differences by gender, offense type, mental illness,

number of children

45
 Future Analysis

 Why are some ex-prisoners successful in reentry while

others recidivate?

 How do neighborhood context and living arrangement

predict substance abuse, employment and risk of
recidivism?

 Goal: Improve rates of successful reentry and reduce

rates of recidivism

46
 Acknowledgments
Jeffrey Morenoff and David Harding

Jay Borchert, Claire Herbet, Liz Johnston,

Jonah Siegel

George Myers and Anita Johnson

SRC Interns

47
 Dynamic Treatment
Regimes in Economics
Shulamite Chiu
University of Michigan– Ann Arbor

Eric Laber and Susan Murphy, PhD

SRC - Quantitative Methodology Program

48
 Background and Role
 Background:
 Economics B.A. from University of Michigan– Ann
Arbor
 Incoming Sustainable Systems M.S. student in
SNRE
 Aspiring to Economics PhD
 Role: Linking dynamic treatment regimes in
economics and statistics
 Weekly presentations to the lab
 Literature review

49
 Current Applications of DTRs:
Marlowe et al. (2008)

 Marlowe’s adaptive
drug court program
 High risk if offender has
either
 “more severe antisocial
propensities”
OR
 “treatment-refractory drug
use histories”

50
Current Applications of DTRs:
Marlowe et al. (2008)

51
Current Applications of DTRs
 Jobs First
 Connecticut Welfare Reform
 Key goal: “replacing welfare with work”

 Strict eligibility and continued eligibility rules

 Time limits

  Incentives for self-support

52
 Jobs First DTR

At beginning of
Evaluation at Evaluation at
unemployment, Treatment 1 u=21 months Treatment 2 u=27 months
u=21 months u=27 months
u=0

Yes and etc.

Do you still meet
Extend benefits D, E, and F
Yes for 6 months
Do you meet D, requirements?
Benefits for 21 E, and F
Yes months No and etc.
requirements?
Do you meet A, No renewal of
B, and C? No benefits
No No benefits

http://www.ct.gov/dss/cwp/view.asp?a=2353&q=305266 53
DTR on Jobs First Website

http://www.ct.gov/dss/cwp/view.asp?a=2353&q=305288 54
How are the treatment rules created?
DYNAMIC TREATMENT
REGIMES

55
Constructing a DTR: Two-Stage
Randomized Trial
Stage 1 Response Stage 2 Rewards

TRT A Y

Treatment TRT B Y
Response?
1
R
TRT C Y
R
TRT A Y

Treatment
Response? TRT B Y
2
R
TRT C Y

56
 Economics & Statistics
 Similarities
 Parameters
 Impact of treatment
 Heckman, Smith, and Clements (1997)
 Murphy (2003)
 Conditioning on personal characteristics
 Lechner and Smith (2007)
 Murphy (2003)
 Optimizing some outcome variable(s)
 Lechner and Smith (2007)
 Robins (2004)
57
 Economics & Statistics
 Differences
 Economics
 Focus on cost-benefit and impact analyses
 Lechner and Smith (2007)
 Interested in effect of treatment on the treated
 Sianesi (2004)
 Often non-experimental data
 Lechner and Wiehler (2007)
 Statistics
 Pay less attention to cost
 Interested in effect of treatment on all individuals who
qualify
 Often data from randomized experiments

58
 Any Further Questions?

Email me at shulamic@umich.edu

Thanks to Susan Murphy, Jeff Smith, Eric Laber, and the rest of the
QMP lab for their encouragement and input these past ten weeks!

Thanks also to George Myers, Anita Johnson, and the SRC Interns!

Bibliography available upon request.

59
 Assessing the Well-Being of
Older Adults:
Preliminary Findings from the
Well-Being and Time Use Study (WATS)

Jennifer Morack
Sponsor: Jacqui Smith, PhD
Health and Retirement Study

60
 Background
 Survey measures of well-being
 Typical measures require a global evaluation of life, such
as life satisfaction, positive and negative affect.
 e.g., “How satisfied are you with your life as a whole these days?”

 Relationship between global measures and momentary

experiences of well-being
 Global measures tend to be overly positive and reflect
remembered satisfaction whereas momentary experiences
of well-being may be more variable and may provide more
information over and above global assessments.
(Kahneman, Krueger, Schkade, Schwarz, & Stone, 2004)
 e.g., Parents will report enjoying their kids overall but may
report the children being pains the night before.
61
 Well-Being And Time Use
Study (WATS)
 Goals
 Develop a survey measure of experienced well-
being for older adults
 To examine if this well-being measure tells us
something over and above global measures

 Validate the construct of experienced well-being

in relation to health outcomes in older adults
 To examine if people in poor health experience less
positive daily well-being

62
 WATS Design

 Pilot study of older adults aged 50+

 Recruitment with fliers and ads around Ann Arbor
 Began with four focus groups at the end of May
with 40 participants
 Discussed daily activities and associated feelings
 Now in the middle of running individual face-to-
face interviews at the ISR for six weeks, ≈ 1 hour
 Goal is to complete >100 interviews by August

63
 WATS and the Health and
Retirement Study (HRS)
 Many measures in WATS come from HRS so that findings
can be benchmarked against a nationally representative
sample.
• NIA-funded publically-
available data (approx.
N = 31,000)
• representative of >50
population
• five cohorts born prior
to 1953 (status 2009)
• household sampling
strategy, including both
members of married
couples
•multidisciplinary
longitudinal data
64
 Protocol
1) Baseline
 Demographics, social network, physical activity,
functional limitations, cognitive tasks (free recall,
delayed recall, word fluency, processing speed)
2) Physical Measures
 Blood pressure, grip strength, near vision, height, weight
3) Psychosocial & Lifestyle Questionnaire
 Includes global well-being measures: Satisfaction with
Life Scale (SWLS, Pavot & Diener, 1993), Positive and
Negative Affect Scale (PANAS, Watson & Clark, 1994)
4) WATS Experienced-Well Being Interview

65
WATS Experienced Well-Being
Interview
 Asks participants about their day yesterday,
what they did, how they felt
 E.g., satisfaction with yesterday:

 Goes through 13 different activities and asks

participants if they did them, for how long,
when, and how they felt while doing them
66
67
 Current Sample
 Sample as of July 16, 2010
 N = 44
 Ages 50-86, Mean age = 64

(61.4% aged 65 and less, 38.6% >65)

 Education:
 11.4% high school or less
 50.0% some college or college grad

 38.6% post college

 36.4% men, 63.6% women; 93.2% Caucasian

 36.4% divorced, 34.1% married, 18.2% single,
9.1% widowed, 2.3% partnered 68
 Preliminary Findings
 Self-rated health: 5 point scale, (1) poor to
(5) excellent, M=3.57, SD=1.02
Percent Participation in Activities
0 20 40 60 80 100
Watch TV
Household chores
Interact with a pet
Interact with grandchildren
Garden
Shop
Work/Volunteer
Socialize
Commute
Exercise
Other health activities
Computer
Mind games 69
 Activity Participation by
Age Group
Activity 65 and less (%) > 65(%)
Watched TV 70.4 88.2
Household Chores 70.4 64.7
Interacted with a Pet 44.4 47.1
Interacted with Grandkids 3.7 17.6
Gardened 25.9 52.9*
Shopped 37.0 47.1
Worked/volunteered 48.1 52.9
Socialized 77.8 88.2
Commuted 92.3 76.5
Exercised 80.8* 50.0
Other Health Activities 7.7 12.5
Used a Computer 69.2 70.6
Did Mind Games 7.7 35.3*
70
 Mean Ratings of Feelings While
Socializing by Age Group
10
9
8 65 and under
7 >65
6
5
4
3
2 *
1
*
0

71
Older Adults Higher in Global Well-Being but
No Age Differences in Well-Being Yesterday
5
65 and under
4 * >65
3

0
Global life Yesterday
satisfaction satisfaction

Correlation between global satisfaction and yesterday

satisfaction: r = 0.54, p < .001 72
 Conclusion
 Still an open question whether experienced
based measures of well-being tell us
something about older adults’ well-being
over and above global measures
 WATS and ROBUST will help answer this
question.
 2 time points in ROBUST instead of 1 – will get a
better sense of daily experiences of well-being

73
 Acknowledgements
 Funding for studies provided by NIH-NIA
 1R21-AG032456-01

 1RC-1AG035576-01

 Many thanks to the Psychosocial and Cognitive

Aging Group: Jacqui Smith, Lindsay Ryan, Aneesa
Buageila, Alex Chavez, Ryan Stringer, Caroline
Becker, Rachel Throop, Sandy Becker
 Thank you also to the SRC internship program
interns, George Myers & Anita Johnson

74
 Elective Surgery,
Paid & Unpaid Work
Amongst Older Adults

Meaghan Hafner
University of Michigan

Sponsor: Lauren Nicholas, PhD

Health & Retirement Study
75
Motivation
 The relationship between high levels of health care
spending/intensity is a contentious topic in health policy
 Health care spending in the U.S. is higher than in other
countries but aggregate health outcomes are not
generally higher (Anderson and Frogner, 2008; Davis et al., 2010)
 Cost per additional year of life gained by 65 year olds
between 1990 and 2000 totaled $145,000 in additional
medical spending (Cutler et al., 2006)
 Medicare beneficiaries in high utilization areas do not
live longer or report better satisfaction with their care
than those in low-utilization regions (Fisher et al., 2003)
76
Motivation
 Health care may affect aspects of productive engagement
 Higher health care spending may lead to living
differently rather than living longer
 Health and functional status are important determinants of
retirement and productive engagement amongst older
adults (Jones et al., 2009; McGarry, 2004; Bound et al., 1999; Kapteyn et
al, 2008)

 Work-limiting disabilities are not necessarily permanent –

surgery or other health care interventions may reverse
state or aid in increasing functionality
 Half of HRS respondents reporting work-limiting disability
in 1992 do not report ongoing disability in subsequent
waves (Kapetyn, 2008) 77
Research Objectives
 Examine paid and unpaid labor supply of older
adults with arthritis in the U.S. and in Europe
 Looking at measures of paid work, volunteerism,
informal care giving, grandchild care
 Compare post-diagnosis labor supply over time
amongst those who do and do not receive elective
hip/knee replacement
 Use Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and Survey
of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe
(SHARE)

78
Data
 Health & Retirement Study (HRS)
 A longitudinal nationally-representative study of 22,000+
people aged 50 and older (and their spouses)
 Conducted every 2 years since 1992
 Focuses primarily on health and retirement decisions in
later life
 For our purposes:
 Use 2002-2006 waves of data
 29,733 person-waves of data from older adults with
arthritis
 Self-report data on work, health, socioeconomic
characteristics, functional limitations, productive activities
79
Data
 Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe
(SHARE)
 A longitudinal and cross-national panel of more than
45,000 individuals aged 50 and over in Europe
 Conducted every 2 years since 2004
 Focuses primarily on health, socio-economic status and
social and family networks
 For our purposes:
 Use of 2004-2006 waves of data
 11,122 person-waves of data from older adults with
arthritis
 Self-reported data on work, health, productive activities,
joint replacement asked in wave 1 only
80
Preliminary Findings
Proportion of Adults 60 and Older Working in the
U.S. and Europe
0.5
Arthritis Everyone

0.4

0.33

0.3
0.26

0.2
0.16

0.1 0.08

0
U.S. Europe

81
Preliminary Analysis
Proportion of Adults 60 and Older Working
in the U.S. and Europe
0.5
Arthritis Everyone

0.4
0.33 0.32
0.30
0.3 0.28
0.26

0.20 0.21 0.20

0.19 0.19
0.2 0.17 0.16
0.13 0.13 0.13
0.10 0.11 0.12
0.09 0.08
0.1 0.07
0.06 0.06 0.06

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82
Model/Estimation
 Regress measures of any work on receipt of surgery
comparing countries in Europe with higher levels of
work to those with lower levels of work
 Countries with higher levels of work:
 Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland
 Countries with lower levels of work:
 Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Italy,
Netherlands, Spain

 Models include demographic characteristics (age,

gender, health and marital status)

83
Results

Care for Provide

Working Grandkids Informal Care
Joint Surgery 0.062 0.031 -0.003
(0.03) (0.06) (0.05)
R2 .24 .03 .10
N 2730 2438 2726
Standard errors in parentheses.
Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) data, 2004-2006.
Models include previously described controls

84
Results
Care for Provide
Working Grandkids Informal Care
Joint Surgery 0.077* 0.007 -0.039
(0.04) (0.06) (0.06)
Country 0.072 0.049 0.157
(0.02) (0.03) (0.03)
Interaction -0.096 0.087 0.104
(0.08) (0.13) (0.13)
R2 0.25 0.03 0.11
N 2730 2438 2726
Standard errors in parentheses.
Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) data, 2004-2006.
Models include previously described controls

85
Results
 Find that joint surgery has effect on paid
work
 Those who have joint surgery in countries
with higher levels of work are 5 percentage
points more likely to be employed
 Joint surgery has no effect on grandchild
care or volunteerism

86
Conclusions
 Potential changes to Medicare affecting
elective surgery availability should
consider labor supply consequences
 Implications for Social Security and long-term
care provision

87
Mama, Nana, and Friends: The
Buffering Effect of Social
Relations on the Stress-
Depression Relationship in
Children

Alvin Thomas, Kira Birditt, Noah

Webster & Toni Antonucci
88
 Background

 Attachment theory:
 Bowlby (1988)

 Buffering (Cohen & Wills, 1985)

 Convoy Model (Kahn & Antonucci, 1980)

89
 Adapted Convoy Model
Properties
of
the Person
Stress

Social Well Being

Network (Depression)

Interaction
Stress by
Network

Properties
of the
Situation
90
 Previous Research
 Daily hassles-depression link

 Social relations buffer

 Importance of family
 Importance of friends

 Friends as a support network

91
 Research Questions
R1. Do daily hassles predict depression among children?
H1 : Children who report greater hassles will report greater
depression.

R2. Is the association between hassles and depression

buffered by social network composition?
H2 : Greater proportions of friends and fewer immediate family and
extended members in the network will buffer the stress-
depression link.

R3. Is the relationship between hassles and depression

buffered by quality of relationship in the social network?
H3 : Greater positive interaction with friends and fewer with
immediate family will buffer the stress-depression link.

H4 : Low levels of negative interaction with friends will buffer the

stress-depression link. 92
 Descriptives of the sample
205 children ages 8 to 12 from a larger representative
sample from the greater Detroit area

Gender distribution Racial Composition

Male Female Black White

37%
48%
52%
63%

93
Social Relations and Mental Health across the Lifespan Study, 1992. Principal investigator, Toni Antonucci
 Measures
 Social relations
 Network composition
(Proportion from immediate family, extend family, and
friends) YOU
 Negative Relationship Quality (Immediate and extend
family, and friends)
e.g. Who gets on your nerves the most?
 Positive Relationship Quality (Immediate and extend family,
and friends)
e.g. Who do you feel safest with?

 Child Depression Inventory (Kovacs, 1977)

α = .67 (current sample)
19 items, each with three statements on a 0-3 Likert scale

Daily Hassles (Lazarus et al., 1984) α = .81 (current sample)

 Mean of how bothered the child felt about daily hassles 94
 Network Composition
60

50
Percentage of total Network

40

30

20

10

0
Immediate Family Extended Family Friend
95
Negative Relationship Quality
90
Proportion of Negative Relationship

80

70

60
Quality

50

40

30

20

10

0
Immediate Family Extended Family Friend 96
Positive Relationship Quality
60
Proportion of Positive Relationship

50

40
Quality

30

20

10

0
Immediate Family Extended Family Friend 97
R1 Do Daily Hassles predict depression?

98
(β= .45; p=.000***; r2= .21; p< .000***)
R2 : Is the association between hassles and depression
buffered by social network composition?

99
(r2 change= .020 , p=.034)
R2 : Is the association between hassles and depression
buffered by social network composition?

100
(r2 change= .017 , p=.046)
 R3 : Is the relationship between hassles and
depression buffered by positive relationship quality?

101
(r2 change= .022 , p=.027)
R3 : Is the relationship between hassles and depression
buffered by negative relationship quality?

102
(r2 change= .017 , p=.049)
 Summary and Implications
1. Stress predicted depression

2. Buffers
 Relationship composition
 Relationship quality

3. Developmental changes

103
 Future Research
 Other network characteristics

 Clinical outcomes

 Trajectory of this influence across the

lifespan

104
Acknowledgements

Kira Birditt
Noah Webster
Toni Antonucci
Life Course Development Staff
George Myers and Anita Johnson
SRC Summer Interns
105
Thank you
106
Meet The Interns

107