Wednesday, September 16, 2015

Archival Database Sources for Student Use


My thanks to Dr. Silvia Bigatti and the health psych faculty who contributed these data sources. 

(Not all of these will be readily available; some require submission of a proposal first; check with each before making plans) 

1.          The National Survey of American Life:  Coping with Stress in the 21st Century
University of Michigan Institute for Social Research
The primary goal of the NSAL was to gather data about the physical, emotional, mental, structural, and economic conditions of Black Americans at the beginning of the new century.  The PRBA hopes that the information gathered will contribute to more consistent improvements in the quality of life for Black Americans and aid in reversing the deterioration that has occurred over the prior two decades (see significance section).
•            Personal Data – Early Life
•            Neighborhood
•            Employment
•            Family and Friends
•            Discrimination
•            Politics and Government
•            Income/financial strains/food insufficiency
•            Housing
•            Detention
•            Chronic Stress

•            Activities and School
•            Employment
•            Social Support
•            Racial Identity
•            Discrimination
•            Health
•            Neighborhood 

2.          National Survey of Midlife Development in the US (MIDUS II), 2004-2006  

Delaney, R. K. (2014). National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States. The International Journal of Aging and Human Development, 79(4), 329-331.

“With support from the National Institute on Aging, a longitudinal follow-up of the original MIDUS samples: core sample (n = 3,487), metropolitan over-samples (n = 757), twins (n = 998 pairs), and siblings (n = 950), was conducted in 2004-2006. Guiding hypotheses for it, at the most general level, were that behavioral and psychosocial factors are consequential for physical and mental health. MIDUS II respondents were aged 35 to 86.”http://www.midus.wisc.edu/midus2/project1/

Self-administered questionnaires (134 pages):  consistent series across context that rates now, 10 years ago, and projecting 10 years into future.
•            Health
•            work/unemployment
•            finances
•            community involvement
•            neighborhood
•            children
•            marriage/close relationship
•            discrimination (various causes)* page 128
•            life overall
MIDUS II Daily Stress Project and Study of Daily Experiences, of use??http://www.midus.wisc.edu/midus2/project2/
 

3.          Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study
Princeton University and Columbia University, http://www.fragilefamilies.princeton.edu/ 

The Fragile Families and Child Well-being Study has a number of scales that may be of interest (couple relationship quality, economic hardships, delinquent behavior, peer bullying).  The nice thing is that they document where every scale comes from.  Some of these scales were created for children, others for the parents:  http://www.fragilefamilies.princeton.edu/documentation/year9/ff_9yr_scales_2013.pdf Questionnaires and Questionnaire Map available here: http://www.fragilefamilies.princeton.edu/core.asp
•            Father-mother relationships
•            Relationships with extended kin
•            Environmental factors and government programs
•            Education and Employment
•            Income
Effects of Social Disadvantage and Genetic Sensitivity on Children’s Telomere Length, March 2015  http://www.fragilefamilies.princeton.edu/briefs/ResearchBrief50.pdf 
Using the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study in Life Course Health Development Research, August 2015  http://crcw.princeton.edu/workingpapers/WP15-02-FF.pdf

4.          Health and Retirement Study (National Institute on Aging) 
Document provides original source for all the questions.
BELOW AND MORE (62 pages)
•            Retrospective Social  Participation
•            Life Satisfaction
•            Social Network (Quality)
•            Neighborhood Disorder/Social Cohesion
•            Everyday Discrimination/Attributions, pages 29, 31:
•            Quality of Relationship with parents in early life / with mother, pages 32, 42
•            Major experiences of lifetime discrimination, page 40
•            Lifetime traumas, page 41
•            Recent stressful life experiences, page 43
•            Satisfaction with Domains of Life (?), page 44
•            Financial Strain, page 45
•            Subjective social status, page 48
•            Chronic work discrimination, page 51
•            Job stressors and satisfaction, page 53
•            Work support, page 54 

5.          Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System  
For BRFSS Survey Questions
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System Survey Questionnaire. Atlanta, Georgia: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, [appropriate year or years].
•            Self-rated health
•            Chronic Health conditions
•            Health risk behaviors?
•            Industry and occupation
•            Social context module
•            Reactions to race module
•            Emotional Support and life satisfaction module
•            (Ever been a time when…] you needed to see a doctor but could not due to cost
•            Health care access
•            Adverse Childhood Experiences module (most recent year = 2012, modified/collapsed responses) 

6.          National Survey of Children’s Health 
•            Family Stress
•            Adverse Family Experiences
•            Neighborhood and Community Characteristics 

7.          General Social Survey (GSS) 
•            Women, work, and family
•            Social support and networks
•            Social inequality 

8.          Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS) 
What HINTS Does
HINTS collects nationally representative data routinely about the American public's use of cancer-related information. The survey:
•            Provides updates on changing patterns, needs, and information opportunities in health
•            Identifies changing communications trends and practices
•            Assesses cancer information access and usage
•            Provides information about how cancer risks are perceived
•            Offers a testbed to researchers to test new theories in health communication
How HINTS Data Are Used
The HINTS data collection program was created to monitor changes in the rapidly evolving field of health communication. Survey researchers are using the data to understand how adults 18 years and older use different communication channels, including the Internet, to obtain vital health information for themselves and their loved ones. Program planners are using the data to overcome barriers to health information usage across populations, and obtaining the data they need to create more effective communication strategies. Finally, social scientists are using the data to refine their theories of health communication in the information age and to offer new and better recommendations for reducing the burden of cancer throughout the population. Hints data are available for public use. 

9.          Study of Women’s Health across the Nation (Swan Study) 
The SWAN Public Use Datasets provide access to longitudinal data describing the physical, biological, psychological, and social changes that occur during the menopausal transition. Data collected from 3,302 SWAN participants from Baseline through the 10th Annual Follow-Up visit are currently freely available to the public. Users are able to download datasets in a variety of formats, search variables and view recent publications. 

10.        Center for Disease Control Data 
The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) is NCHS' most in-depth and logistically complex survey, operating out of mobile examination centers that travel to randomly selected sites throughout the country to assess the health and nutritional status of Americans. This survey combines personal interviews with standardized physical examinations, diagnostic procedures, and laboratory tests to obtain information about diagnosed and undiagnosed conditions; growth and development, including overweight and obesity; diet and nutrition; risk factors; and environmental exposures.

The National Health Care Surveys provide information about the organizations and providers that supply health care, the services they render, and the patients they serve. Provider sites surveyed include physician offices, community health centers, ambulatory surgery centers, hospital outpatient and emergency departments, inpatient hospital units, residential care facilities, nursing homes, home health care agencies, and hospice organizations. The National Health Care Surveys are used to study resource use, including staffing; quality of care, including patient safety; clinical management of specific conditions; disparities in the use and quality of care; and diffusion of health care technologies, including drugs, surgical procedures, and information technologies.

The National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) provides information on the health status of the U.S. civilian noninstitutionalized population through confidential interviews conducted in households by Census Bureau interviewers. NHIS is the Nation's largest in-person household health survey, providing data on health status, access to and use of health services, health insurance coverage, immunizations, risk factors, and health-related behaviors.

The National Vital Statistics System (NVSS) provides the Nation's official vital statistics data based on the collection and registration of birth and death events at the state and local levels. NCHS works in partnership with the vital registration systems in each jurisdiction to produce critical information on such topics as teenage births and birth rates, prenatal care and birth weight, risk factors for adverse pregnancy outcomes, infant mortality rates, leading causes of death, and life expectancy. 

11.        Substance Abuse and Mental Health Data Archive (SAMHSA) & The National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) 

SAMHSA and NSDUH staff collected the data to be used in this study from the 2006 through 2010 survey results. The public access data will be obtained through the NSDUH website http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/SAMHDA/browse  and downloaded for analysis. Data will be stored on this researcher’s computer during the dissertation process.  At the conclusion of this study, all data outputs and syntax will be stored on an external drive and locked in a secured housing unit. Because the entire dataset is public domain, no personal identifiers or residential locations were provided. Thus, all participants are anonymous and no additional precautions are necessary. Based on the NSDUH Codebook for each year, the aforementioned variables were identified based on codes. Given all data had been previously formatted for SPSS analysis, a simple extraction of the necessary variables from the database was performed. The variables that were extracted from the database did not disclose identifiable aspects of any respondent and was compared as part of a trend analysis across all 5 years of data (Office of Applied Studies, 2009). The NSDUH series (formerly titled National Household Survey on Drug Abuse) was formulated specifically to measure the frequency and possible contributing factors of drug use in the United States (Office of Applied Studies, 2009). For the purposes of this study, all participants (approximately over 60,000 per year) within the public access data file will be analyzed for each year. Note: this file excludes regional information and all participants under the age of 18 and other protected populations. All data collected by the NSDUH was prepared under a contract with the Research Triangle Institute (RTI), a nonprofit organization that provides research and technical services located in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina (Office of Applied Studies, 2009). Each NSDUH respondent was provided an incentive payment of $30 to participate (Hughes et al., 2002; Hughes et al., 2009; Hughes et al., 2012). GDP figures for analysis will be downloaded from The World Bank GDP data website at http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG.

 http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/SAMHDA/browse.  For a more detailed description of survey methods and questions as well as tables and figures illustrating regional overlap, please refer to http://www.samhsa.gov/data/population-data-nsduh/reports?tab=32 and click on desired year of inquiry. 

12.        Nurses’ Health Study 

This is a large observational cohort investigation to study health status and its antecedents across the life span. The original Nurses’ Health Study (NHS) begun in 1976, and the Nurses’ Health Study 2 (NHS2) begun in 1989, NHS3 became available in 2011. These studies represent the largest and most longterm studies ever conducted on women’s health. Headquartered at Harvard University, the principal investigators (PIs) are Drs. Frank Speizer (founding PI), Susan E. Hankinson (current PI and a nurse), and Walter C. Willett (NHS2 PI). Funded by the National Institutes of Health, the NHS investigated the long-term consequences of oral contraceptive by enrolling approximately 122,000 nurses from 11 states who were ages 30 to 55. Every 2 years, participants are surveyed about their health status, including diseases, smoking, hormone use, and menopausal status. Over the years additional data have been collected about diet, quality of life, and biologic samples. Similar in intent to the original NHS, NHS2 enrolled more than 116,000 nurses between ages 25 and 42 in 1989. The NHS and NHS2 have sustained response rates of 90% for each 2-year cycle. Because the lifestyle and environmental exposures of women have changed, NHS3 is currently enrolling nurses between ages 22 and 42 from across the United States using a totally web-based data collection method. The central purpose of NHS3 is to examine how new hormone preparations, dietary patterns, and occupational exposures affect women’s health. An important goal of NHS3 is to broaden the racial and ethnic composition of the sample, while more closely studying fertility and pregnancy events, adolescent diet, and breast cancer risk. You may have already received an invitation to participate in the NHS3. However, if you were born after January 1, 1965, are a female nurse, and have not enrolled, I encourage you to visit the NHS3 website (http://www.nhs3.org/) and consider the opportunity to become a participant. Similar to NHS and NHS2, participants will be part of a cohort of more than 100,000 nurses and be asked to respond to surveys about their health every 2 years. More than 15,000 nurses have already enrolled. 

13.        National Children’s Study 

Mandated by the Children’s Health Act of 2000, the NCS is being implemented by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, NIH to prospectively investigate the influence of biological, environmental, genetic, and social factors on the health and development of children in the United States until age 21. The NCS broadly defines environment as factors such as air, water, diet, sound, family dynamics, community and cultural influences, and genetics. Participants are being enrolled through approximately 105 (79 urban and 26 rural) NCS Centers in 43 states strategically chosen to provide an unbiased, statistically valid participant cohort representative of the U.S. population. Participants in the NCS can be women between age 18 and 49 who live in one of the designated geographic study areas and anticipate becoming pregnant, their offspring, and the fathers of their children. In addition to these participants, data sources include their physical, community, social, and familial environments. Children will be followed until age 21. The NCS website (http://www.nationalchildren sstudy.gov/) identifies the current and developing NCS centers. Approximately 37 of the eventual 105 NCS centers are currently enrolling participants in the Vanguard Study, a pilot study designed to assess the feasibility, acceptability, and cost of three different recruitment strategies as well as the study procedures and outcome assessments to be used in the main study. The NCS website has comprehensive information about the Vanguard and main studies and links to the study centers 

14.        Longitudinal Studies of Child Abuse and Neglect (Longscan) 

LONGSCAN is a consortium of research studies operating under common by-laws and procedures. It was initiated in 1990 with grants from the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect through a coordinating center at the University of North Carolina Injury Prevention Research Center and five satellite sites. Each site is conducting a separate and unique research project on the etiology and impact of child maltreatment. While each project can stand alone on its own merits, through the use of common assessment measures, similar data collection methods and schedules, and pooled analyses, LONGSCAN is a collaborative effort.

The coordinated LONGSCAN design permits a comprehensive exploration of many critical issues in child abuse and neglect on acombined sample of sufficient size for unprecedented statistical power and flexibility. Built into the design is also the ability to replicate and extend findings across a variety of ethnic, social and economic subgroups.

The goal of LONGSCAN is to follow the children and their families until the children themselves become young adults. Comprehensive assessments of children, their parents, and their teachers are scheduled to occur at child ages 4, 6, 8, 12, 14, 16, and 18. Maltreatment data is collected from multiple sources, including record reviews, at least every two years. Yearly telephone interviews allow the sites to track families and assess yearly service utilization and life events. TheNational Data Archive on Child Abuse and Neglect (NDACAN) makes a restricted dataset available to members of the research community who meet eligibility criteria and agree to the requirements of the data license. 

15.        National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (ADD Health) 

The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) is a longitudinal study of a nationally representative sample of adolescents in grades 7-12 in the United States during the 1994-95 school year. The Add Health cohort has been followed into young adulthood with four in-home interviews, the most recent in 2008, when the sample was aged 24-32*. Add Health combines longitudinal survey data on respondents’ social, economic, psychological and physical well-being with contextual data on the family, neighborhood, community, school, friendships, peer groups, and romantic relationships, providing unique opportunities to study how social environments and behaviors in adolescence are linked to health and achievement outcomes in young adulthood. The fourth wave of interviews expanded the collection of biological data in Add Health to understand the social, behavioral, and biological linkages in health trajectories as the Add Health cohort ages through adulthood. 

Next time I will examine the Abstract. Do you have an issue or a question that you would like me to discuss in a future post? Would you like to be a guest writer? Send me your ideas! leann.stadtlander@waldenu.edu

Monday, September 14, 2015

Talking to Faculty


How can you best present yourself to your faculty mentors? I suggest having a curiosity approach to your interactions. Ask questions; learn about them and their experiences. When they give you advice, make sure you really understand it. This approach will allow them to see your interest in the topic and in them.  

Always be polite in your faculty interactions, thank them for sharing their knowledge and time with you. Think of it as positive reinforcement, you are rewarding good behaviors. If you are angry with a faculty member be very careful in your approach, you want to have a long-term relationship with this person. It is often better to let an email or phone call wait for a while than approaching it in anger. Be calm, be professional.  

Next time I will examine writing your abstract. Do you have an issue or a question that you would like me to discuss in a future post? Would you like to be a guest writer? Send me your ideas! leann.stadtlander@waldenu.edu

Friday, September 11, 2015

Dealing with Obstacles


How do you deal with problems and obstacles that arise with your dissertation? One method proposed by Dweck (2006) is to use a growth mindset, in which you make problems, negative feedback, and obstacles learning opportunities. You can gain this perspective by asking yourself

             What can I learn from this?

             How can I do this better? 

According to Dweck's research, people who use a growth mindset go on to ever-increasing levels of achievement, because they harvest each experience for what they can learn. In applying this to your dissertation, consider when you get feedback: what can you learn from it? What writing/ research skills can you gain? Treat each feedback as a learning experience in writing and research design. Make notes of your problem areas and work on correcting those issues in the future. If you see you have consistent problems in specific areas, consider taking a writing course or getting some books on the subject. Become an expert, use this time during your dissertation writing as an opportunity to gain professional skills. 

Next time I will discuss talking with faculty. Do you have an issue or a question that you would like me to discuss in a future post? Would you like to be a guest writer? Send me your ideas! leann.stadtlander@waldenu.edu

Wednesday, September 9, 2015

A guest writer



 Doctoral student, Meredith Baker-Rush has been going through the IRB process with multiple stakeholders. She shares today some of her hard-earned lessons. 

The hours of pain staking reading and writing the proposal are stressful and demanding, yet at some point you will complete a wonderful proposal, “pass” the oral defense, and IRB process. You will hear the magical words “data collection” and you want to cry tears of joy! I am sure you have the idea that data collection is a huge step in the process. You think that after all the struggles, all will move smoothly and quickly. Well, I am writing to share my lessons learned so far in efforts to help others move quickly and effectively in this process.  

  • If you are using other stakeholders for your participant pool(s), be sure to investigate their IRB process, documents, and demands well in advance. Do not wait for the surprise demands that stall your study.
  • Keep a separate binder for any change of procedure submissions and all approval letters/emails related to each request.
  • Stay organized with all the changes. Keep a log of the updated drafts of ALL aspects of the study. (This is a huge challenge when you have more than one stakeholder!)
  • Stay on top of participant recruitment. Days turn quickly to weeks. Time is of the essence. Do not be passive in your recruitment.
  • Look at the data as it does come in. Check that the study is “happening” as described in the proposal. If new things are noted, make notes.
  • Keep a journal of your thoughts and ideas, observations, and struggles.
  • Keep open lines of communication with your chair. CC them in the communications with Stakeholders as your chair suggests. If you have a question about a stakeholders request, check with your chair and confirm the suggested change is appropriate and reasonable PRIOR to doing the change.
I must admit that these words of wisdom are easy to type out and very difficult to follow. I have been making a consistent effort to do each of these steps in efforts to stay on top of things. It is sometimes harder than the proposal stage. I have learned a lot in the past two months regarding patience and organization from a very different perspective. Please learn from me and let my hard lessons learned be little golden nuggets of wisdom that will help propel you through the process. Best of luck on your dissertation journey. 

Next time I will discuss dealing with obstacles. Do you have an issue or a question that you would like me to discuss in a future post? Would you like to be a guest writer? Send me your ideas! leann.stadtlander@waldenu.edu

Monday, September 7, 2015

Where are you going?


 Before you begin a trip, don’t you need to know your destination? Have you considered this with your doctoral studies? At the start of your dissertation you should be considering your final goal, do you want to teach and do research at a college or university? Do you want to be a researcher in a corporate environment? Now is the time to set yourself on the course to make that happen. 

If you want to teach and do research in a college or university make sure you are getting the experience you will need to be marketable. Apply for teaching and research assistantships. If you do not have access to these then search for teaching positions in your geographical area and at online institutions. With a master's degree, you can typically teach at most junior and community colleges. Also consider professional schools; the important element is to experience in front of a classroom. Make sure that you save all teaching evaluations; these are proof of your teaching ability. Volunteer to help with faculty's research projects, if that isn't possible for you at your institution then search at local colleges and universities. 

Begin to consider doing a postdoctoral fellowship. These are one to two year paid positions in which you assist other researchers on their projects. In some fields, these are mandatory or as in psychology, they are optional. They provide you with the opportunity to gain important research skills and professional contacts. The negative is that they do not tend to pay well. Check out your professional organizations to see what is available. 

Begin to plan out your future and how you can make that future happen! Next time, we will have a guest writer share her lessons learned in the IRB process. Do you have an issue or a question that you would like me to discuss in a future post? Would you like to be a guest writer? Send me your ideas! leann.stadtlander@waldenu.edu
 

Friday, September 4, 2015

Curiosity: Be Foolish



As I am sure you are aware, academia does not actively promote curiosity and exploring unknowns. Researchers are encouraged to follow in others' footsteps, which while ultimately building a basis for future work it may also stifle breaking new ground. How to balance these? One technique is to cultivate "conscious ignorance." Become fascinated with what you do not know; keep a research journal in which you allow yourself to speculate and consider new directions. In these pages be foolish, make leaps of imagination, and consider new areas. Then begin to follow these up and explore how these ideas fit into the current thinking in your field. I do not recommend taking the early musing to your faculty, but they are a great way to jumpstart your brain and let you consider new potentials and theoretical ideas.

 

Next time, we will consider where you are going. Do you have an issue or a question that you would like me to discuss in a future post? Would you like to be a guest writer? Send me your ideas! leann.stadtlander@waldenu.edu

Wednesday, September 2, 2015

Questions and Lack of Knowledge




I have been examining Marquardt's (2005) stated reasons that people do not ask questions. Today, we will take a look at his final reason, a lack of the skills to ask them. You may have experienced the situation in which you are not sure how to even ask a question about a topic. The topic may seem too large to know where to begin. This is often the case when students begin a new area of study, the terminology may be too foreign to phrase the question appropriately. In this situation, it is often helpful to write down initial questions and attempt to find the answers on your own, paying particular attention to the language used. Then ask questions of your faculty mentor. If you find that, the answers do not make things any clearer, ask for resources so you can learn more. Take control of your learning, fill in the gaps of your knowledge so you know the right questions to ask and how to find the answers. 

Next time, I will consider being foolish. Do you have an issue or a question that you would like me to discuss in a future post? Would you like to be a guest writer? Send me your ideas! leann.stadtlander@waldenu.edu 

Marquardt, M. (2005). Leading with Questions: How Leaders Find the Right Solutions by Knowing What to Ask. Jossey-Bass.