Robustness in health research: Do differences in health measures, techniques, and time frame matter?

Robustness in health research: Do differences in health measures, techniques, and time frame matter?
Paul Frijters, Aydogan Ulker
Journal of Health Economics
Volume 27, Issue 6, December 2008, Pages 1626–1644

Abstract
Survey-based health research is in a boom phase following an increased amount of health spending in OECD countries and the interest in ageing. A general characteristic of survey-based health research is its diversity. Different studies are based on different health questions in different datasets; they use different statistical techniques; they differ in whether they approach health from an ordinal or cardinal perspective; and they differ in whether they measure short-term or long-term effects. The question in this paper is simple: do these differences matter for the findings? We investigate the effects of life-style choices (drinking, smoking, exercise) and income on six measures of health in the US Health and Retirement Study (HRS) between 1992 and 2002: (1) self-assessed general health status, (2) problems with undertaking daily tasks and chores, (3) mental health indicators, (4) BMI, (5) the presence of serious long-term health conditions, and (6) mortality. We compare ordinal models with cardinal models; we compare models with fixed effects to models without fixed-effects; and we compare short-term effects to long-term effects. We find considerable variation in the impact of different determinants on our chosen health outcome measures; we find that it matters whether ordinality or cardinality is assumed; we find substantial differences between estimates that account for fixed effects versus those that do not; and we find that short-run and long-run effects differ greatly. All this implies that health is an even more complicated notion than hitherto thought, defying generalizations from one measure to the others or one methodology to another.

JEL classification C23; C25; I31; Z1
Keywords Morbidity; Mortality; Lifestyle; Income

Ungated Version

Ireland v France

A recent quality of life survey touted by the Guardian newspaper is a perfect example of the need to look behind the statistic headline. The headline reads the UK and Ireland are the worst places in Europe to live, and France is amongst the best. You can see how this might conjure some suspicion given Ireland's perennial heights in self-rated QOL surveys and France's perennial problem with strikes - as a case in point I believe the city of Paris is on foot today due to an all out train strike there! Interestingly, one aspect of the questionable index is age of retirement...

The index also magically (!) mixes together hours of work, holidays, GDP per capita, VAT rates, fuel-, alcohol-, tobacco-, and food-prices, life-expectancy and hours of sunshine.. but what really makes the caldron bubble is government spending on health and education. where more spending is unquestionably good.

Criticism on the complied score and resulting rankings aside, the scores on the individual aspects measured are new and provide an interesting and useful snapshot for quick comparisons.

New York Times Data-Driven Life

Socrates talked about the unexamined life not being worth living. Developments in wearable data collection and feedback technologies take this to a new extreme

link here

Measurement Issues in the QHNS and the Live Register

A number of measurement issues related to the QHNS and the Live Register have been noted on this blog before. The QHNS is the official measure of unemploymemt in Ireland and it is based on more economically meaningful (ILO) definitions (compared to the Live Register). However, it needs to be handled with care because anyone working for pay or profit for one hour a week or more is classified as employed.

The Live Register is a more up-to-date source of information than the QHNS, but it is not purposefully designed to measure unemployment. It includes part-time workers (those who work up to three days a week), as well as seasonal and casual workers entitled to Jobseekers Benefit or Allowance. A press release from the Department of Social and Family Affairs (from earlier this month) highlights another measurement issue related to the Live Register:

"the Live Register figures published by the CSO each month includes all claims awaiting decision. Once a claim is registered, it is counted for Live Register purposes regardless of whether the individual is in receipt of Jobseeker’s Benefit, Jobseeker’s Allowance or awaiting a decision on their claim. This means that the Live Register figure of 423,639 for September 2009, published by the CSO, includes some 14,300 Jobseeker’s Benefit claims and 43,900 Jobseeker’s Allowance claims which were awaiting decision at the end of September."

The Sentiment on the US Economy from Twitter

The Analytic Bridge blog describes an exercise conducted by Life Analytics where 10000 tweets containing the word economy were collected with the purpose of finding out what people think and how they feel about the US Economy and the economic crisis. The exact details of the methodology don't seem to be documented, but the following are some results:

- US President tells that the economy gets better but people don't feel the same.

- Economy cannot be getting better while at the same time there are layoffs.

- People expressing very negative feelings after losing their jobs.

CEMMAP

I was involved lately in a day-long session in CEMMAP in the Institute for Fiscal Studies. The session examined new measures in economics. Worth looking at the papers to see some of the thinking going on here. For those of you not familiar with CEMMAP, it is really worth looking closely at their website for one of the world's finest and most active programme on microeconometrics.

link to session

France To Use Happiness As Economic Indicator

"French President Nicolas Sarkozy has asked world leaders to join a 'revolution' in the measurement of economic progress by dropping their obsession with gross domestic product to account for factors such as health-care availability and leisure time."

From the Huffington Post.

Survey Data in Economics – Methodology and Applications

Call for Papers

On November 06-07, 2009, the Business Cycles Analysis and Survey Department of Ifo will organize a conference in Munich on the topic of survey data in economics. The conference is intended to discuss ongoing research on survey data and its application in economics.

The organizers welcome both theoretical and empirical contributions on survey data in economics, with a special emphasis on methodology and the usage of business survey data. Among the central issues that could be addressed in this conference are:

- methodology of business surveys
- dealing with non-response
- quantitative vs. qualitative responses
- behavioural aspects in surveys
- forecasting performance of survey data in business-cycle research
- econometrics of survey data
- usage of micro-data in empirical economics

More details available here.

Does Facebook Hurt Your Grades? Can Twitter Make You Smarter? What About YouTube?

Does Facebook hurt your grades? This may be the question that parents everywhere will soon be asking their children. There is the argument that students cannot blame Facebook because if Facebook did not exist, they would find another distraction. However, Facebook users under parental supervision will probably have scant praise for the researchers from Ohio State University who have shown that the majority of students who use Facebook every day are underachieving by as much as an entire grade, compared with those who shun the site. See the story in the Times here.

The researchers discovered that students who spend their time accumulating friends, chatting and “poking” others on the site may devote as little as one hour a week to their academic work. “It is the equivalent of the difference between getting an A and a B,” said one of the researchers, Karpinski. Of course, this does not account for selection bias and unobserved characteristics. Also, the researchers have not yet analysed whether a student’s grades continue to deteriorate the longer he or she spends on Facebook. So the same individuals have not been tracked over time.

A new YouTube offering may take up as much of students' time as a Facebook account, though it may help their grades. "YouTube University" has gathered together all the video channels of the universities and colleges it's partnered with over the years and put them under the YouTube EDU banner. One of the videos (below) is from the University of Minnesoata and is about using Twitter, Wikis and instant messaging in the classroom.

Educational researcher Cynthia Lewis says that the use of social media in the classroom serves two purposes. The first is catching the attention of students and increasing their participation in the classroom. The second is preparing them for communicating in tomorrow's new media landscape. She says that "21st century literacies are all about digital media".





While it may be the case that too much Facebook can hurt your grades, doing the right amount of social networking through online platforms can help your career and is also a lot of fun. Plus, it may help learning in the classroom.

Competition Time

A recent post on the Freakonomics blog links to a competition organised by the Fraser Institute which seeks proposals on what economic or public policy issues should be measured. First prize (sponsored by the R.J. Addington Center for the Study of Measurement) is $1,000 and there are five runners-up prizes of $500. (The closing date is May 15th).

Also, a recent article in the Irish Independent describes how an Irish firm is offering €10,000 for a good business idea. The firm is iQ Content, and they are offering the iQ Prize for the country’s best new tech idea. The idea can be anything that’s internet-based; more details are available from www.iqprize.ie (no strings attached). There are 15 entries so far and 42 days to go.

And don't forget, this Friday is the closing date for the HEA/Irish Independent competition for research students --- to win one of two €2,500 travel awards. What needs to be done? Your research - what difference does it make?