The workshop will include an overview of personnel time on the project, salaries and benefits, other than personnel services (OTPS), consultants, equipment, patient care, alterations and renovations, consortium/contractual costs, budget justification, direct/modified direct/indirect costs.
“What works” for justice-involved people with mental illness
Abstract: Each year, over 2 million people with serious mental illness are booked into U.S. jails. These people typically stay longer in jail than those without mental illness—and, upon release, are more likely to be reincarcerated. Today, over 300 counties have resolved to “step up” their efforts to reduce the number of people with mental illness in jail. In this presentation, I highlight research on “what works” to reduce re-offending among justice-involved people with mental illness. Programs must avoid the traditional assumption that mental illness is the direct cause of the problem, and linkage with psychiatric services is the solution. Evidence-based, cost-effective programs look beyond psychiatric explanations to address robust risk factors that are shared by people with- and without mental illness.
The workshop will include an overview of human subjects/UCLA IRB preaward, data sharing plan, multiple PI plan and clinical trials, Office of Contract and Grant Administration (OCGA), S2S Grants/Cayuse, E-pass and electronic submission, eDGE disclosure, submission deadlines to OCGA, and interacting with eRA Commons.
"Contemporary Trends in American Mortality: International Comparisons and Emerging Challenges"
Abstract: The decades surrounding the turn of the 21st century have been a challenging period for American mortality. The United States is currently facing a large-scale opioid epidemic, and life expectancy barely increased between 2010 and 2015. This talk will cover various dimensions of contemporary trends in American mortality including the contribution of drug overdose to educational gradients in life expectancy, an analysis of the contemporary drug overdose epidemic in international perspective, and how the U.S.’s recent life expectancy stagnation has impacted its standing in international life expectancy rankings relative to other high-income countries.
Abstract: Traditional approaches to public health concerns have conferred great advances in the duration and quality of life. Public health interventions – from improved sanitation efforts, to vaccination campaigns, to contact tracing and environmental regulations – have helped reduce common risks to health throughout many areas of the world. Unfortunately, while traditional methods from the […]
Abstract: Acquisition of evidence-based understanding of human health behavior and exposure to environments forms a central focus of health research, and a critical prerequisite for effective health policy. The use of mobile devices to study health behavior via cross-linked sensor data and on-device self-reporting and crowdsourcing offer compelling advantages to complement traditional techniques. Data collected […]
"Train Wreck: US Immigration and Border Policy 1965-2010."
Abstract: Despite the massive increase in border enforcement after 1986, undocumented population growth did not decrease, but rose. In this talk I undertake a systematic analysis of border enforcement as a policy for immigration control. Empirical results explain not only why it failed, but how and why it backfired. In the end, the militarization of the border did not increase the probability of apprehension at the border or reduce the likelihood of unauthorized entry; but it did dramatically change the geography of border crossing, increase the costs of undocumented migration, and elevate the physical risks of border crossing. Ironically, these trends had no effect on the likelihood of undocumented departure for the United States, but instead reduced the probability undocumented returns back to Mexico, thereby increasing the net volume of undocumented migration and accelerating undocumented population growth.
*Co-Sponsored with the Center for the Study of International Migration and the Social Stratification, Inequality, and Mobility working group.
The historically unprecedented size of the U.S. criminal justice system has necessitated the development of diversion programs to reduce caseloads as a cost containment strategy. Court deferrals, which allow felony defendants to avoid formal convictions through probation, are one example. Using two discontinuities in deferral rates in Harris County, Texas, separated by 13 years, we find consistent evidence that diversion reduces reoffending and unemployment among first-time felony defendants. Similar benefits are not observed for repeat offenders suggesting felony record stigma as a key mechanism. Young, African American men drive the total effect, a pattern consistent with over-targeting by law enforcement.
"The Uphill Climb: A Transnational Perspective on Wealth Accumulation among Latino Immigrants in Durham, NC"
Abstract: Wealth accumulation is a key dimension of ethno-racial stratification, and, among immigrants, an important indicator of incorporation. Dramatically low assets among immigrant Latinos is thus a pressing concern, necessitating a better understanding of the social forces that shape wealth assimilation. Drawing on a survey of Latino immigrants in Durham, NC, I argue for the importance of a transnational perspective on wealth for immigrant populations. Nationally representative surveys designed to assess inequality among the general population generally lack information on wealth held abroad, which accounts for the lion’s share of assets held by immigrants in our sample. Likewise, these data sources rarely have information on factors salient to immigrants, particularly legal status and informal employment. Finally, I show that the socio-demographic characteristics central to life-cycle wealth models operate in different ways for U.S. and foreign assets, and for men and women. For instance, while household earnings and duration of Durham residence are associated with greater U.S. assets among Durham’s Latino migrants, they fail to predict wealth held abroad. Likewise, low educational attainment and informal employment are associated with lower U.S., but not foreign, wealth. Instead, the key predictors of wealth abroad relate to family structure. I further document structural barriers to immigrant Latino wealth accumulation, such as employment marginality and lack of access to mainstream financial institutions.
*Co-Sponsored with the Center for the Study of International Migration
"When Should Researchers Use Inferential Statistics When Analyzing Data on Full Populations?"
Abstract: Many researchers uncritically use inferential statistical procedures (e.g., hypothesis tests) when analyzing complete population data—a situation in which inference may seem unnecessary. We begin by reviewing and analyzing the most common rationales for employing inferential procedures when analyzing full population data. Two common rationales—having to do with handling missing data and generalizing results to other times and/or places—either lack merit or amount to analyzing sample (not population) data. Whether it is appropriate to use inferential procedures depends on whether researchers are analyzing sample or population data and on whether they seek to make causal or descriptive claims. When doing descriptive research, the distinction between sample and population data is paramount: Inferential statistics should only be used to analyze sample data (to account for sampling variability) and never to analyze population data. When doing causal research, the distinction between sample data and population data is unimportant: Inferential procedures can and should always be used to distinguish (for example) robust associations from those that may have come about by chance alone. Crucially, using inferential procedures to analyze population data to make descriptive claims can lead to incorrect substantive conclusions—especially when population sizes and/or effect sizes are small.
"How Multiracial Identities and Racial Classification Shape Latinos’ Dating Preferences"
Abstract: Understanding how life experiences vary by different dimensions of race may help clarify the growing Latino population’s place in the U.S. racial structure. This study examines how self-identifying with more than one racial group and racial classification relate to racial dating choices among Latinos. Analyses of data from online dating profiles reveal divergent patterns in stated racial preferences among Latinos depending upon whether and how they also identify with other racial groups. Latinos who identify as White express racial preferences that are more similar to Whites than to monoracial Latinos, while the preferences of Black-identified Latinos are more similar to Blacks, consistent with Whitening and Black exceptionalism theories. However, regardless of racial self-identity, Latino online daters vary in their exclusion of Whites depending upon how they are racially classified by others. These findings suggest that Latinos’ racial preferences are influenced by the existing racial structure and that Latinos contribute to maintaining the racial hierarchy through their dating choices. In addition, the findings suggest multiple assimilation trajectories within this diverse population.
*Co-Sponsored with the Center for the Study of International Migration
"Intergenerational Relationships among Latino Immigrant Families in Spain: Conflict and Emotional Intimacy"
Abstract: Relationships with parents have been identified as a major factor in shaping adolescents’ well-being and cognitive development. Compared to adolescents in native families, immigrant children face multiple stressors associated with international migration that may cause the relationship with their parents to be more conflictive or emotionally distant. In this paper, we compare the levels of mother-child conflict and emotional intimacy among Latino immigrant and Spanish native families living in Spain. Our analysis shows that Latino adolescents do not describe the relationship with their mothers as more conflictive than natives do. However, they report more emotional distance with their mothers than native adolescents. This differential with natives cannot be fully attributed to migration-related factors like physical separation from parents due to staggered family migration, to the lower life satisfaction of Latino mothers’ in their new destination or to an acculturation gap between mother and child. However, the fact that immigrant mothers spend less time doing activities with their children, probably due to their harder working conditions, explains part of the differential in emotional intimacy with native families. Finally, our analyses clearly establish an equally negative relationship between conflict and emotional intimacy for both native and Latino immigrant families.
The UCLA Department of Statistics and the Center for Social Statistics presents: Modelling Mobility Tables as Weighted Networks Contemporary research on occupational mobility, i.e. how people move between jobs, tends to view mobility as being mostly determined by individual and occupational characteristics. These studies focus on people’s sex, ethnicity, age, education or class origin and […]
"A Large-Scale Survey of International Migrants from Rural Bangladesh: Longitudinal Evidence on Migration Costs, Earnings and Health"
Abstract: Popular attention has focused on the harsh conditions facing overseas guest workers from countries such as Bangladesh to the states of the Persian Gulf, with the assumption of negative health consequences. In contrast, the global empirical literature on migrant health finds generally positive health outcomes for migrants relative to those left-behind, due in large part to self-selection. Yet most such studies match separate datasets from sending and destination country rather than using a binational panel survey. Few focus on guest workers or migrants to non-OECD destinations. The Matlab Health and Socioeconomic Survey (MHSS) is a binational panel survey that follows a representative sample of a rural area of Bangladesh from 1996-7 to 2012-4. Between survey rounds, one quarter of young adult males moved outside the country (most to the Persian Gulf), with one-third migrating internally. All out-migrants were followed, including festival and phone interviews with overseas migrants. MHSS2 achieved a 92% reinterview rate, including 87% of overseas migrants. This paper provides preliminary assessment of data quality for phone and festival interviews, and measures the effects of migrant status (international, internal), return migrant and country of destination on livelihoods, physical health and mental health. Regression estimates account for the potential confounding effects of current and past socioeconomic characteristics of the migrant, his parents, family and community using data back to 1974. Propensity score estimates account for the effects of self-selection into migration, while bounding exercises address the potential effects of differential inter-survey mortality.
Ethical Issues in Public Presentations
"Policing and the Educational Performance of Minority Youth"
Abstract: How does the expansion of police presence in poor urban communities affect educational outcomes? Exploiting a quasi-experimental design from New York City, we present causal evidence of the impact of aggressive, zero-tolerance policing on the educational performance of minority youth. Under Operation Impact, the New York Police Department (NYPD) saturated high crime areas with additional police officers with the mission to engage in aggressive order maintenance policing. We used administrative data from about 680,000 adolescents aged 10 to 14 and exploited quasi-random variation in the relative timing of police surges and the date of standardized exams among children in the same neighborhood. Exposure to police surges significantly reduced test scores for African-American boys. The size of the effect increases with age but there is no discernible effect for African-American girls and Hispanics. Aggressive policing can thus lower the educational performance of African-American youth and perpetuate the racial achievement gap.
The UCLA Center for the Study of International Migration invites graduate student applicants for an-all day workshop on Refugee Movements and Refugee Policy. Immediately preceding a one day conference on the same topic, the workshop is designed to take advantage of the presence of an international and interdisciplinary group of refugee scholars to provide graduate-level instruction on this essential topic, but one that is rarely addressed by courses offered on our campus.
"Heterogeneous Causal Effects: A Propensity Score Approach "
Abstract: Heterogeneity is ubiquitous in social science. Individuals differ not only in background characteristics, but also in how they respond to a particular treatment. In this presentation, Yu Xie argues that a useful approach to studying heterogeneous causal effects is through the use of the propensity score. He demonstrates the use of the propensity score approach in three scenarios: when ignorability is true, when treatment is randomly assigned, and when ignorability is not true but there are valid instrumental variables.
"Boomer and Millennial Young Adulthood Relationships: A Demographic Perspective"
Abstract: Baby Boomers were at the forefront of many changes in young adult relationship and family experiences. Today a new cohort, Millennials, outnumber Boomers and have redefined young adulthood. Dr. Manning will contrast the relationship experiences of young adult Boomers and Millennials. She will share new findings about recent patterns and trends in the formation and stability of young adult relationships. Concluding comments will focus on challenges and opportunities for research on young adults in the United States.
*Co-sponsored with The Family Working Group at UCLA
"A re-appraisal of thinking on and the empirical evaluation of migration theories"
Abstract: Over the last quarter Century, there has been considerable efforts to systematize knowledge on and empirically test the drivers of population mobility around a set of eight theories that either explain the initiation or continuation of international labor migration flows. In this presentation, I provide a reflection aimed at furthering theoretical development and empirical testing of these theories. I do so by: (1) providing more specific guidance on how the different theories’ overlapping scales of influence interrelate more specifically than examined in prior work; (2) arguing for a more complete formulation of some of these theories to better explain contemporary immigration flows; and (3) discussing whether/how these theories can help bridge the understanding of the “drivers” of internal vs. international migration, and of labor vs. other kinds of mobility, including some forms of forced displacement. Throughout, I also discuss how the quantitative testing of these theories has fallen into pitfalls of both thinking measurement, which have likely led to a misattribution of the relative importance of some theories, suggesting some refinements on the empirical validation of and the more general use of these theories in guiding empirical analysis going forward.
*Co-sponsored with the Center for the Study of International Migration and the Center for Mexican Studies
