2004 Summer Internship Symposium

1
2004 Summer Internship Symposium
Date Tuesday, August 3, 2004 Time 100
230 p.m. Place Main ISR Bldg., Room
6050
The Survey Research Center is an equal
opportunity employer who values diversity in the
workplace.
2
Welcome

• Overall Purpose of Symposium
• Background
• 2003 Pilot (3 undergrads 2 grads)
• Participating Programs (HRS, UEP, SMP, MRRC, and
  SEH)
• 2004 Program (4 undergrads 1 grad)
• Participating Programs (MRRC, SEH, SRO, LCD, and
  DAS)

3
Sara Abelson

• Life Course Development

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Internship

• Institute for Social Research
• Survey Research Center
• Summer Institute in Survey Research Techniques
• Introduction to Survey Research Techniques course
• Life Course Development Program
• Research focuses on improving our understanding
  of family and friendship relations across the
  life span
• Goal to expand our knowledge of the associations
  among social relations, mental health and
  physical health
• Assisted with several research projects

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Gender Differences in Perceptions of Close
Social Relationships
Acknowledgements Toni Antonucci and Kira Birditt
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Background

• Ample evidence indicating differences in the
  social relationships of men and women
• Important to examine
• How they differ
• Why they may differ

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How Social Relationships Vary By Gender

• Structure
• Relationships with the same people (Parents,
  spouses, children, friends)
• Same amount of contact with network members
• Women have larger social networks, particularly
  more females they consider very close friends
• Function
• What type of support is given and received?
• Generalization women give emotional support, men
  give instrumental support
• Quality
• Womens relationships are more intimate, more
  self-disclosing
• Women provide and receive more support
• Generally No gender differences in wanting
  personal networks to change

8
Assessing the quality of social relationships

• Effect on well being
• Social support has been shown to have positive
  effects on health and well-being, especially for
  women
• Most recent findings with women
• Friends can be a burden kin keeping role
• Can one genders relationships be better than
  the others?
• Much research has supported the idea that womens
  friendships are superior
• Most of the work is done by women
• More complex picture

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Importance of the Present Study

• Important to examine more than simply overall
  gender differences
• Must examine
• Specific relationship types
• Specific aspects of those relationships

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Research Questions

• Are their gender differences in the degree to
  which men and women feel supported by their close
  relationships?
• Are there gender differences in the extent to
  which men and women confide in others?
• Are there gender differences in the way that men
  and women perceive demands by their close social
  relations?
• Do these gender differences vary by relationship
  type (e.g. spouse, friend)?

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Method

• Data obtained from the Social Relations and
  Mental Health Across the Life Course survey
  conducted in 1993-94 (see Antonucci Akiyama,
  1994).
• Participants
• 1,498 people, ages 13 to 93 years, from a
  regionally representative sample of the greater
  Detroit metropolitan area.

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Characteristics of Sample
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Measures

• Demographics
• Age, gender, marital status. parental status,
  work status.
• Perceptions of specific relationships (Mother,
  Father, Spouse/Partner, Same-sex friend, Child)
• Perceived Social Support I feel my ___
  supports me, that (he/she) is there when I need
  (him/her).
• Confiding in Others I can share my most
  private thoughts and feelings with my ___ .
• Perceived DemandsMy ___ makes too many demands
  on me.
• Participants rated each item from 1(disagree) to
  5 (agree).

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Results

• Analysis strategy
• T tests conducted to examine
• gender differences in perceptions of support,
  confiding, and demands across all relationship
  types
• gender differences in perceptions of support,
  confiding, and demands within specific
  relationship types

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Overall Gender Differences Across Relationship
Types

• Women share their most private thoughts and
  feelings with others
• more so than men.
• No overall gender differences for perceptions of
  support and demands.

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Gender Differences in Perceptions of Social
Support from Specific Relationships

• Women feel more supported by their friends and
  less supported by their spouses than men.

17
Gender Differences in Ones Ability to Confide in
Others within Specific Relationship types

• Women confide in their mothers and friends more
  than men.
• Men confide in their spouses more than women.

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Gender Differences in Perceptions of Demands from
Specific Relationships

• Women feel that their spouses and children make
  too many demands on them.
• Men feel that their fathers make too many
  demands on them.

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Findings

• Women confide in their friends and feel supported
  by them.
• Women also confide in their mothers.
• Men confide in their spouses and feel supported
  by them.
• Women, feel that their spouses make too many
  demands on them, as do their children.
• Men feel that their fathers make too many demands
  on them.

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Summary

• Findings are consistent with previous findings
• Make sense logically
• Women provide emotional support and have more
  intimate, self-disclosing, intense relationships
• Both men and women, therefore, turn to women for
  social support and confiding personal feelings
• Men can turn to their wives
• Women must seek out other women, their friends,
  or their mothers, to confide in and gain support

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Implications

• Important to examine differences within specific
  relationship types
• Pay attention to detail and nuances
• Raises Questions
• Different needs?
• Different capabilities?
• Different expectations?
• Mechanisms of difference
• Genetic
• Hormonal
• Socialization
• Cultural

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Future Directions

• Study different countries, communities and
  cultures
• Examine heterosexual and homosexual couples
• Focus Group Studies
• Research examining the husband and wife of one
  couple and comparing perceptions of support
  reception and provision, as well as confiding and
  demands within that relationship

23
Thank You

• Kira Birditt
• Toni Antonucci
• And everyone in the Life Course Development
  Office
• George Myers
• Internship Program and ISR
• SRC Summer Institute
• Maria Krysan and Sue Ellen Hansen

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Detroit Area Study Dr. Ossian Sweet

• Andrew Chandler

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OUTLINE

• DETROIT AREA STUDY
• DAS History
• DAS 2004
• Software Extracting Data
• Problems
• Solutions
• DR. OSSIAN SWEET
• Sweet History
• Civil Rights Significance
• Detroit Pictures

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DAS History

• Started 1951 as a "Training and Research
  Laboratory in the Community
• 3 Goals research, training, data
• New Topic Each Year

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DAS 2004

• TOPIC Social, Economic and Racial Change in
  Metropolitan Detroit
• 4 Areas of Focus
• 1) Racial attitudes and residential segregation
• Cards with rows of houses
• 2) Technology and evaluating neighborhoods
• Laptops, video clips, and pictures
• 3) Arab-Americans VS Blacks Whites
• 4) Detroit New Black Metropolis
• Growing upper and middle classes

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Software Extracting Data

• Maps with ArcView used during interviews
• American FactFinder
• SAS

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(No Transcript)
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Problems

• Zero People in SF3 (sample)
• 2 People in SF2 (100 Percent Data)
• Compromising confidentiality

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Solutions

• Small samples
• Top and bottom coding
• Limiting of detail
• No geographic identifiers for pop lt 100,000
• Data swapping
• Race Sex Age Salary
• White Male 25 100,000
• White Male 28 70,000
• After Data Swapping
• Race Sex Age Salary
• White Male 28 100,000
• White Male 25 70,000

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Sweet History

• Raised in Barstow, Florida
• Undergrad Wilberforce College
• Med School Howard University
• Specialized in gynecology
• Studied in Vienna Paris under Madame Curie
• Bought home at 2905 Garland (white neighborhood)

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Civil Rights Significance

• 2 shots on mob killing one, wounding one
• Feared for lives as house was stoned
• Tried for 1st degree murder
• One hung jury
• All white male jury
• 2nd trial brother Henry admits
• Seen as defense - acquitted and all charges
  dropped
• Gives right to defend people and property
  regardless of race

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2905 Garland
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Jackie Spots Daniel Baxter
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Daniel Baxter Ren Farley!
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Front Back of Historical Marker
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Ford Rouge Center
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Ford Power Plant
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Belle Isle Frank H. Beard School
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Saint Anne Roman Catholic Church
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Livingston Lighthouse Dime Bldg
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Joe Louis Fist Pylon Statue
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Ambassador Bridge
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Guardian Building Lobby Annunciation Parish
Church
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Pewabic Pottery itsNational Marker
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Tiger Stadium
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THANK YOU

• George Myers
• Dana Dyderski
• Ren Farley
• Martha Hill
• Its been a pleasure.

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Difficulties in Establishing Guidelines
for CAI InstrumentsSurvey Research Operations

• Jeffrey Gonzalez

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Guidelines What? and Why?

• What?
• Specification documents
• Screen design and layout
• Programming
• Why?
• Consistency across projects
• Save money and time
• Help ensure collection of quality data
• Reduces total survey error ?

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Guidelines Who are they for?

• Managers
• Clients
• Programmers
• Users
• Interviewers
• Respondents
• Analysts

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Guidelines vs. Standards

• Guidelines
• General
• Recognize that every project is different
• Standards
• Rigid
• Offer less flexibility for differences among
  projects

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Level of Detail of a CAI Specification Document

• Questions
• Text
• Special features, e.g. emphasis
• Responses
• Ranges
• Numbering
• Skip logic
• If-then statements
• Loops

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Screen Shot
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Screen Shot (2)
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Level of Detail of a Screen

• General layout
• Question
• Response
• Input
• Color
• Text
• Instructions
• Text formats
• Left justified
• Margins

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Programming Feasibility

• Easy to implement
• Programming hubris
• Trained CAI programmers?
• Experience as a user
• Knowledgeable about all aspects of the survey
  process

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The Balancing Act

• Must consider all viewpoints
• Evaluating usability
• Consistency
• Error prevention and recovery
• Ease of navigation
• Feedback sense of context
• Online documentation

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Guidelines On the Verge of Becoming Standards?

• At what point do we go too far?
• Too loose then may not be effective
• Too strict then may appear burdensome

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Cheap Fast Good
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Farayha Arrine The Future of Social
SecurityMRRC
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History of Research Retirement Center

• The Social Security Administration awarded two
  centers, one at Boston College and one at the ISR
  to administer research on Social Security,
  pensions, and retirement plans.
• The RRC was funded in 1998 for a five-year
  period. It is currently in its second five-year
  period and receives 1.5 million each year from
  the SSA.

63
History of Social Security

• Created in the 1930s to help World War I
  veterans.
• Created a roll-over debt because the payroll tax
  contributions of early Social Security
  beneficiaries were much less than the benefits
  they received.
• Social Security funds also present a problem
  because the life expectancy has grown.

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History of Social Security Contd

• At the current rate, researchers predict that
  Social Security funds will have completely
  depleted by 2022.
• Solutions offered to save Social Security from
  insolvency are reduced benefits for the elderly,
  increase in payroll taxes, and the privatization
  of Social Security.
• Researchers funded by the SSA study these topics
  to find a solution.

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RRC activities

• Allocate funds to researchers at University of
  Pennsylvania, Dartmouth College, Cornell
  University, and RAND, among others.
• Prepare narratives on research proposals each
  year to send to SSA for funding approval.
• Prepare quarterly progress reports detailing the
  works of researchers thus far.
• Dissemination of research findings through annual
  conference, workshops, newsletter, and papers
  available on website.

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Newsletter
July 2004 Volume 5, Issue 3

• The newsletter includes research briefs as well
  as general information on available findings and
  data.
• Sent to policy-makers and legislators.

Directors Corner   The Social Security
Administrations Strategic Plan for Fiscal Years
2003-2008 states the following objective
through education and research efforts, support
reforms to ensure sustainable solvency and more
responsive retirement and disability programs.
One of the stated means to achieve this objective
is to maintain an in-house capacity of policy,
actuarial, and legislative expertise to respond
to decision makers questions about the fiscal,
distributional, and administrative aspects of
proposals to modernize the Social Security
programs. The Retirement Research Consortium was
created to enhance this capacity, providing
access to a broader network of scholars. The
Michigan Retirement Research Center continues to
serve this mission, fostering scientific
research, communication, and education related to
Social Security, pension and retirement policies.
This August, the Consortium will meet at the
National Press Club for two days to present and
discuss findings from current research and policy
analysis.
Attend the 6th Annual Conference of the Social
Security Administration Retirement Research
Consortium August 12-13, 2004 National Press
Club, Washington, DC Information about this
conference, including registration information,
will be provided and updated as needed on the
MRRC website www.mrrc.isr.umich.edu The 6th
Annual Conference is being organized by the
Michigan Retirement Research Center in
cooperation with the Boston Center for Retirement
Research, the Retirement Research Center of NBER,
and the Social Security Administration.
John Laitner, Director MRRC
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Website

• The MRRC website features research papers from
  previous years. Aims to make research available
  to a wider audience.

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The Future of Social Security

• This years researchers will present on topics
  such as
• Personal accounts in Sweden Lessons for the
  United States.
• Reducing the Risk of Investment Based Social
  Security.
• How Fast Should the Social Security Age Rise?

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A balanced approach to solving the Social
Security crisis

• MIT professor Peter Diamond offers a solution
  that balances benefits reduction with an increase
  in payroll taxes.
• Increase maximum taxable amount (87,000 in 2003)
• Reduce benefits for richest Americans - they
  collect benefits longer than beneficiaries with
  lower incomes.
• Add 3.5 percent legacy debt tax to high-income
  citizens.
• Include the 4 million Americans who currently do
  not contribute to Social Security taxes, in
  helping pay for the deficit.

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Carrie Hosman HIV/AIDS in South Africa
Attitudes and Preventative Behaviors by
Demographics

• Social Environment Health

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Presentation Overview

• Background on South Africa and HIV/AIDS in the
  country
• South Africa Stress and Health Study
• Differences in HIV/AIDS attitudes and behaviors
  by race

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Background Information Racial Groups in South
Africa

• Blacks (79.3)
• Whites (9.4)
• Coloureds (8.8)
• People of mixed racial background
• Indians/Asians (2.4)
• Indians are descendents of immigrants from the
  Indian subcontinent.

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Background Information HIV/AIDS

• The estimated prevalence of HIV in South Africa
  is 20.1 (UNAIDS, 2002).
• Women account for more than half of the cases of
  people living with HIV in South Africa, and
  younger women represent the bulk of these cases.
• Even when adjusting for socioeconomic factors,
  the prevalence of HIV is significantly higher
  among black South Africans while it is
  substantially lower for coloureds and Asians and
  lowest for whites (UCSF AIDS Policy Research
  Center, 2003).

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Background Information HIV/AIDS (2)

• People with lower incomes have a higher
  prevalence of HIV/AIDS. Unskilled workers have
  the highest HIV infection rate and the highest
  AIDS-related death rate (United Nations
  Development Programme, 1998).
• Among blacks, the prevalence of HIV among those
  who are employed is about 20, but among those
  who are unemployed, the prevalence jumps to
  around 35 (University of Cape Town Centre for
  Actuarial Research, 2001).

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The South Africa Stress and Health Study (SASH)

• Part of the World Mental Health initiative
• Nationally representative sample of individuals
  of age 18 and above
• Analysis based on 3,630 cases (some provinces
  missing from data set as of now)
• Only 10 people of the 3,630 (about 0.3) reported
  being HIV positive prevalence data used is from
  literature.
• Racial composition in the incomplete SASH is
  relatively close to that of South Africa as a
  whole.

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HIV/AIDS Variables Examined

• Worry Score sum of levels of concern from five
  items about which a person could be worried
  (ranges from 0-20)
• Sampled Items
• Safety of the blood supply (in general, giving,
  and receiving)
• Having an injection
• Having an operation

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HIV/AIDS Variables Examined (2)

• Precautions Score sum of yes responses to
  five statements detailing precautions taken to
  protect oneself from HIV/AIDS (ranges from 0-5)
• Sampled Items
• Take more care over things you touch
• Seek more stability in choice of partners
• Take precautions in sexual intercourse
• Avoid certain social situations
• Avoid certain types of people

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HIV/AIDS Variables Examined (3)

• Perceived chances of contracting HIV/AIDS
• Past testing behavior for HIV
• Personal knowledge of someone with HIV/AIDS

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Household Income by Race
80
60
40
Percentage of people in each category
Race
white/Caucasian
20
black
coloured
0
Indian/Asian
R 3,000-8,999
No income
R 9,000 or higher
R 1-2,999
Household Income
80
HIV/AIDS Differences by Race Worry about
HIV/AIDS
15.0
14.0
13.0
12.0
Average Worry Score
11.0
10.0
coloured
white/Caucasian
Indian/Asian
black
Race
81
HIV/AIDS Differences by Race Worry about
HIV/AIDS

• Gender
• Black females are significantly more concerned
  about HIV/AIDS than their male counterparts.
  Although for whites and coloureds women also
  report higher average worry scores than men,
  blacks are the only race for which this
  relationship is statistically significant.

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HIV/AIDS Differences by Race Precautionary
Behaviors
3.5
3.0
2.5
2.0
Average Precautions Score
1.5
1.0
.5
0.0
coloured
white/Caucasian
Indian/Asian
black
Race
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HIV/AIDS Differences by Race Perceived Risk of
Contracting HIV/AIDS
1.0 Low
.5
Average perceived risk
0.0
coloured
white/Caucasian
black
Indian/Asian
Race
84
HIV/AIDS Differences by Race Perceived Risk of
Contracting HIV/AIDS

• Education
• Blacks and coloureds with more education perceive
  themselves at a greater risk of contracting
  HIV/AIDS than those with less education.
• Income
• Data show no significant difference in the
  perceived risk of contracting HIV among blacks of
  different financial groups despite the
  substantial difference in prevalence.
• Respondents in the lowest income group report
  lower average perceived chances than the 15 of
  respondents in the highest income group.

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HIV/AIDS Differences by Race Testing Behavior
50
40
30
20
Percentage ever tested
10
0
coloured
white/Caucasian
Indian/Asian
black
Race
86
HIV/AIDS Differences by Race Knowing Someone
with HIV/AIDS
50
40
30
Percentage who know someone
20
10
0
coloured
white/Caucasian
Indian/Asian
black
Race
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HIV/AIDS Differences by Race Knowing Someone
with HIV/AIDS

• Gender
• Indian/Asian men are more than twice as likely to
  know someone with HIV/AIDS than women of the same
  race.
• Education
• As education increases among blacks, they are
  more likely to know someone with HIV/AIDS.

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Conclusions

• The findings of this analysis are limited due to
  the incomplete data set used.
• Regardless, substantial differences among people
  of different races exist in HIV/AIDS attitudes
  and behaviors these differences exist even when
  people are compared to those with similar
  incomes.
• Blacks, the considerable majority in South
  Africa, have the most differences when examined
  by other demographic characteristics.
• This information could be used and compared to
  prevalence data to determine target populations
  for future HIV/AIDS outreach efforts.

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Concluding Remarks

• Acknowledgements
• Sponsors
• Summer Institute Staff
• SRC Internship Selection Committee
• SRC Diversity Committee
• SRC-DO Support Staff
• Computing
• Student Interns

The Survey Research Center is an equal
opportunity employer who values diversity in the
workplace.