The effects of merit-based financial aid on drinking in college.

We study the effect of state-level merit aid programs (such as Georgia's HOPE scholarship) on alcohol consumption among college students. Such programs have the potential to affect drinking through a combination of channels--such as raising students' disposable income and increasing the incentive to maintain a high GPA--that could theoretically raise or lower alcohol use. We find that the presence of a merit-aid program in one's state generally leads to an overall increase in (heavy) drinking.

Economic Assessment of FMDv Releases from the National Bio and Agro Defense Facility.

This study evaluates the economic consequences of hypothetical foot-and-mouth disease releases from the future National Bio and Agro Defense Facility in Manhattan, Kansas. Using an economic framework that estimates the impacts to agricultural firms and consumers, quantifies costs to non-agricultural activities in the epidemiologically impacted region, and assesses costs of response to the government, we find the distribution of economic impacts to be very significant. Furthermore, agricultural firms and consumers bear most of the impacts followed by the government and the regional non-agricultural firms.

Linking human health and livestock health: a "one-health" platform for integrated analysis of human health, livestock health, and economic welfare in livestock dependent communities.

Background: For most rural households in sub-Saharan Africa, healthy livestock play a key role in averting the burden associated with zoonotic diseases, and in meeting household nutritional and socio-economic needs. However, there is limited understanding of the complex nutritional, socio-economic, and zoonotic pathways that link livestock health to human health and welfare. Here we describe a platform for integrated human health, animal health and economic welfare analysis designed to address this challenge.

The Pot Calling the Kettle Black? A Comparison of Measures of Current Tobacco Use.

Researchers often use the discrepancy between self-reported and biochemically assessed active smoking status to argue that self-reported smoking status is not reliable, ignoring the limitations of biochemically assessed measures and treating it as the gold standard in their comparisons. Here, we employ econometric techniques to compare the accuracy of self-reported and biochemically assessed current tobacco use, taking into account measurement errors with both methods. Our approach allows estimating and comparing the sensitivity and specificity of each measure without directly observing true smoking status.

Cost-effectiveness analysis of zinc supplementation for treatment of acute diarrhea in children younger than 5 years in Colombia.

Objective: The objective of this study was to determine the cost-effectiveness of zinc supplementation for the treatment of acute diarrhea (AD) in children younger than 5 years in Colombia.

Methods: The cost-effectiveness analysis was performed from the perspective of the Colombian health system. The standard treatment with the addition of zinc was compared with the standard treatment without zinc in children younger than 5 years.

Results of the BRD CAP project: progress toward identifying genetic markers associated with BRD susceptibility.

The Bovine Respiratory Disease Coordinated Agricultural Project (BRD CAP) is a 5-year project funded by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), with an overriding objective to use the tools of modern genomics to identify cattle that are less susceptible to BRD. To do this, two large genome wide association studies (GWAS) were conducted using a case:control design on preweaned Holstein dairy heifers and beef feedlot cattle. A health scoring system was used to identify BRD cases and controls.

Financial crises, Asian stock indices, and current accounts: An Asian-U.S. comparative study.

This paper investigates the effects of financial crises-based exchange rate, real interest rate, and personal consumption expenditure on stock market indices and balances of current account in four Asian countries/areas, and the U.S. from 1997 to 2010.

Using canonical correlation analysis to identify environmental attitude groups: considerations for national forest planning in the southwestern U.S.

As public land management agencies pursue region-specific resource management plans, with meaningful consideration of public attitudes and values, there is a need to characterize the complex mix of environmental attitudes in a diverse population. The contribution of this investigation is to make use of a unique household, mail/internet survey data set collected in 2007 in the Southwestern United States (Region 3 of the U.S.

Economic Assessment of Zoonotic Diseases: An Illustrative Study of Rift Valley Fever in the United States.

This study evaluates the economic consequences of a Rift Valley Fever outbreak, a virus that spreads from livestock to humans, often through mosquitoes. Developing a 'one health' economic framework, economic impacts on agricultural producers and consumers, government costs of response, costs and disruptions to non-agricultural activities in the epidemiologically impacted region, and human health costs (morbidity and mortality) are estimated. We find the agricultural firms bear most of the negative economic impacts, followed by regional non-agricultural firms, human health and government.

Child care choices, food intake, and children's obesity status in the United States.

This article studies two pathways in which selection into different types of child care settings may affect likelihood of childhood obesity. Frequency of intake of high energy-dense and low energy-dense food items may vary across care settings, affecting weight outcomes. We find that increased use of paid and regulated care settings, such as center care and Head Start, is associated with higher consumption of fruits and vegetables.

Participation in Universal Prevention Programs.

We analyze family decisions to participate in community-based universal substance-abuse prevention programs through the framework of expected utility theory. Family functioning, which has been shown to be a good indicator of child risk for substance abuse, provides a useful reference point for family decision making. Our results show that well-functioning families (with children at low risk for substance use) should have the lowest incentive to participate, but that high-risk families may also opt out of prevention programs.

Oral health in psychiatric adults in Argentina.

This cross-sectional descriptive study was performed at neuropsychiatric institutions in Buenos Aires Province. A randomized sample was selected of 384 20- to 65-year-old adults: 56 with mental disorders and undergoing a process of deinstitutionalization (DG), 220 institutionalized (IG) and 108 ambulatory adults with no diagnosis of mental disorder considered as the control group (CG). Inclusion criterion was receiving oral healthcare at the same dentistry facility.

Measuring bias in self-reported data.

Response bias shows up in many fields of behavioural and healthcare research where self-reported data are used. We demonstrate how to use stochastic frontier estimation (SFE) to identify response bias and its covariates. In our application to a family intervention, we examine the effects of participant demographics on response bias before and after participation; gender and race/ethnicity are related to magnitude of bias and to changes in bias across time, and bias is lower at post-test than at pre-test.

The incidence of the healthcare costs of smoking.

Smokers earn less than non-smokers, but much is still unknown about the source(s) of the smoker's wage gap. We build on the work of Bhattacharya and Bundorf (2009), who provide evidence that obese workers receive lower wages on account of their higher expected healthcare costs. Similarly, we find that smokers who hold employer-sponsored health insurance (ESI) receive significantly lower wages than their non-smoking peers, while smokers who are not insured through their employer endure no such wage penalty.

The differential effects of full-time and part-time work status on breastfeeding.

Objectives: Return to work is associated with diminished breastfeeding. Although more mothers breastfeed after returning to work compared to a decade ago, research has not documented the variations in breastfeeding initiation and duration based on full-time and part-time (less than 35h/week) work status. In this study, we clarify these differences.

Fungicide Spray Programs for Defender, A New Potato Cultivar with Resistance to Late Blight and Early Blight.

Defender (A90586-11) is a new late blight-resistant potato cultivar which was released from the Tri-State Potato Variety Development Program in 2004. Conventional and reduced fungicide spray programs were compared on Defender and Russet Burbank (3 years) and Ranger Russet (1 year) in Wisconsin experimental field trials. Useful levels of field resistance to both late blight and early blight were observed in Defender in the absence of fungicide sprays and reduced fungicide input programs.