Event History Calendar Research Articles

Pandemic changes in U.S. contraceptive use: National survey estimates reveal significant differences by demographic subgroups

ObjectivesThe COVID-19 pandemic brought multiple simultaneous consequences, with high potential to change fertility-related behaviors. We use nationally representative sex and contraceptive use event history calendar measures to demonstrate person-specific changes in contraceptive use after the pandemic, showing differences across demographic subgroups. Study designWe use data from the first nationally representative web survey of U.S. fertility, fielded in 2020-2022: the American Family Health Study (AFHS). Using responses from 1,357 female-identifying respondents ages 18-49, we analyze 26,274 person-months of sex and contraceptive use data spanning directly before and after the beginning of the pandemic to detect change. ResultsIndividual-level hazard models of starting and stopping contraception revealed no pandemic-related changes in starting contraception, but significant reductions in the rate of stopping contraception for specific subgroups. Hispanic females reduced their rates of stopping contraceptive use during the pandemic (lowering their odds of stopping use by 71%), ultimately behaving more similarly to individuals from other racial or ethnic subgroups. Additionally, those aged 41 and older significantly reduced their rates of stopping contraceptive use (lowering their odds of stopping use by 78%) relative to other age groups. ConclusionsSudden large-scale health policy changes can produce significant changes in contraceptive use behaviors. The COVID-19 changes interacted with race, ethnicity, and age to produce different changes in contraceptive behaviors among different subgroups of the U.S. population.

A prospective longitudinal approach to examine the association between social position in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood with the control of hypertension during adulthood.

Hypertension is one of the main concerns in public health, since it is related with increased morbidity, and potential years of life lost in addition to loss of quality of life. This study aimed to assess: (1) the distribution of indicators of life course SEP in a cohort of Colombian patients with hypertension and (2) to assess the association of life course SEP and control of hypertension among this cohort of patients. Data were obtained using the baseline survey of 258 patients from the Social Determinants and Inequities in the Control of Blood Hypertension Program (ProDSICHA). Mother occupation and housing conditions were measured with the Event History Calendar. Mother educational level was measured with the questionnaire developed by the Project on Ethnicity and Race in Latin America (PERLA). Socioeconomic position during adulthood was measured using education, occupation, and income level based in the MacArthur Network. The group with a higher lifelong social position and the group of lower lifelong social position showed better control of hypertension (OR = 1.21; p <0.05; OR = 1.33; p < .05, respectively) compared to those whose social position throughout life varied the most. No statistical differences were found in the relations between single lifetime social position variables, and hypertension control in the three time points analyzed. These findings warrant further research to deeper our understanding on the role of a multidimensional and cumulative approach of social position in hypertension control.

Mães adolescentes, autocuidado e cuidado infantil: validação de conteúdo de um calendário histórico de eventos

To validate the content of the tool Event History Calendar Adolescent Mother: strengthening self-care and child care. Methodological study using the Delphi technique, conducted in two rounds, involving 37 nursing specialists. In data collection, from December/2019 to August/2020, a semi-structured questionnaire composed of 47 items related to the two dimensions of the tool: Self-care and Child Care was used. The Content Validity Index ≥ 0.80 was used to assess agreement among the experts. Qualitative elements were analyzed for clarity and comprehensiveness of content. In the first round, 46 items showed Content Validity Index ≥ 0.80. The qualitative elements pointed out more clarity for the adolescent audience. After the changes, the tool presented 30 items. In the second round, the 30 items evaluated achieved Content Validity Index ≥ 0.80. The qualitative considerations were translated into modifications in the content and sequence in the final version of the tool. The validated tool obtained adequate evaluation of the items of each dimension, related to adolescent mother self-care and child care, with a high degree of comprehensibility.

Adolescent mothers, self-care and childcare: content validation of an Event History Calendar

RESUMO Objetivo: Validar o conteúdo da ferramenta Event History Calendar Mãe Adolescente: fortalecendo o autocuidado e o cuidado da criança. Método: Estudo metodológico com a técnica Delphi, realizado em duas rodadas, envolvendo 37 especialistas de enfermagem. Na coleta de dados, de dezembro/2019 a agosto/2020, foi utilizado um questionário semiestruturado composto por 47 itens relacionados às duas dimensões da ferramenta: Autocuidado e Cuidado da criança. O Índice de Validade de Conteúdo ≥ 0,80 foi utilizado para avaliar a concordância entre os especialistas. Elementos qualitativos foram analisados quanto à clareza e abrangência do conteúdo. Resultados: Na primeira rodada, 46 itens apresentaram Índice de Validade de Conteúdo ≥ 0,80. Os elementos qualitativos apontaram necessidade de maior clareza para o público adolescente. Após as alterações, a ferramenta apresentou 30 itens. Na segunda rodada, os 30 itens avaliados alcançaram Índice de Validade de Conteúdo ≥ 0,80. As considerações qualitativas foram traduzidas em modificações no conteúdo e sequência na versão final da ferramenta. Conclusão: A ferramenta validada obteve avaliação adequada dos itens de cada dimensão, relacionados ao autocuidado da mãe adolescente e cuidado da criança, com alto grau de compreensibilidade.

Breaking commuter mode-use habits: An exploration of deliberative decision-making windows and their implications for travel demand management

It is widely accepted that travel behaviour can be habitual. It is also widely accepted that voluntary Travel Demand Management (TDM) seldom records city-wide mode-switching impacts. If travel choices are habitual, this is unsurprising, as much of the population are not making deliberative choices, and new information is not considered. Shifts to deliberative choice-making are posited to occur when a ‘stressor’ (e.g., changing job location) is experienced, which renders the travel habit no longer satisfactory. A common conceptualisation of these moments is that the stressor triggers deliberation, manifested in information-seeking and experimentation, to find a new satisfactory behaviour. If found and implemented, a new habit may be formed. This conceptualisation has implications for improving TDM impacts. It is tempting to assume that voluntary TDM measures should target those who have just experienced such stressors, as they are likely to be most receptive to deliberative change. This paper reports the findings of a retrospective survey of a purposive non-probability sample of (n = 250) Cape Town commuters who had experienced a habit-breaking stressor. A recall aid in the form of an ‘event history calendar’ was used to help create multiple memory recollection pathways of past commuting behaviour, and a ‘deliberation calendar’ was used to guide respondents in reporting the process of habit breaking. The study found that the trigger for deliberation and information-seeking was not the manifestation of a new residence or job location (together accounting for the majority of observed stressors), but around two months earlier when the decision-maker consolidated a plan of action. This finding contributes to a growing literature on the temporal dimensions of behaviour dynamics, and has implications for how TDM should be targeted. Targeting new homeowners or employees misses the ‘window of opportunity’ to influence deliberative decisions and new habits. These decision-makers need to be targeted sooner, while still house- or job-seekers.

Beyond Medically Complex Pregnancy: A Scoping Review to Understand How Complexity in Pregnancy is Conceptualized.

The goal of this scoping review was to better understand how complexity in pregnancy is conceptualized. Specific objectives were to (1) identify factors that are conceptualized in the literature as complicating or impacting pregnancy; and (2) summarize tools and programs that have been implemented to support pregnant people with complex care needs. Electronic databases were searched from January 2000 to July 2020 and supplemented by bibliographic searches and citation chaining, to identify articles that described at least one nonmedical and one medical risk factor during pregnancy. We focused on complexity prior to the onset of labor and only included primary studies conducted in middle- or high-income countries. More than 6000 records were screened independently by 3 reviewers at the abstract and title level. Fourteen articles met inclusion criteria. Eight studies described antenatal risk scoring systems, including the Florida Healthy Start Prenatal Risk Screen, the Kindex risk screening tool, the prenatal event history calendar, and the Rotterdam Reproductive Risk Reduction score card. We abstracted 85 medical factors and 25 nonmedical factors from the literature. Nonmedical factors that were conceptualized as complicating pregnancy or birth could be grouped into 4 domains: characteristics of the childbearing person (7 factors), socioeconomic conditions (7 factors), family and social life (5 factors), and psychoemotional health (6 factors). We found limited scholarly research and few assessment tools that broaden the discussion of complexity in pregnancy beyond medical multimorbidity. Multiple dimensions of health should be integrated into a complexity framework for pregnancy that account for the diverse contexts and needs of pregnant people. An important part of this process is the development of a shared language to describe complexity that is strength based and acknowledges how environments, health care encounters, and the larger sociocultural context can affect pregnant people's medical status in pregnancy.

Onset and temporal sequencing patterns of comorbidity between lifetime major depression, panic disorder and fibromyalgia.

Fibromyalgia (FM) is a syndrome of unknown aetiology characterised by chronic widespread musculoskeletal pain and associated with high rates of psychiatric comorbidities, mainly mood and anxiety disorders.This study aims to determine the age at onset (AAO) and temporal sequencing patterns of FM and its frequent and distinguishable psychiatric comorbidities, the major depressive episode/s (MDE), and panic disorder (PD). Diagnosis of MDE and PD were assigned using the Structured Clinical Interview for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders fourth edition (DSM-IV). The AAO of FM, MDE, and PD was defined using the event history calendar. All patients completed a sociodemographic data form, self-report questionnaires measuring FM-related symptoms and function, and the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire-28 (CTQ-28). 98 (83%) of the 118 recruited patients with FM had at least one psychiatric comorbidity. Two main temporal patterns were identified among the 83 patients (70.3 %) who could reliably report the age at onset of FM and psychiatric comorbidities. In the concurrent comorbidity pattern (CCP), MDE and/or PD co-occurred with the onset of FM. In the sequential pattern (SP), the patients first developed PD, then MDE, and finally FM. FM patients with SP are overweight and younger than those with a CCP (FM concurrent with MDE and PD) and reported more childhood adversities, mainly sexual abuse. AAO of psychiatric comorbidities significantly differed between the two patterns. The presence of different temporal comorbidity patterns may suggest prevention/early treatment interventions, especially in patients with childhood adversities and early-onset PD.

A Web-Based Event History Calendar Approach for Measuring Contraceptive Use Behavior.

Event history calendars (EHCs) are frequently used in social measurement to capture important information about the time ordering of events in people's lives, and enable inference about the relationships of the events with other outcomes of interest. To date, EHCs have primarily been designed for face-to-face or telephone survey interviewing, and few calendar tools have been developed for more private, self-administered modes of data collection. Web surveys offer benefits in terms of both self-administration, which can reduce social desirability bias, and timeliness. We developed and tested a web application enabling the calendar-based measurement of contraceptive method use histories. These measures provide valuable information for researchers studying family planning and fertility behaviors. This study describes the development of the web application, and presents a comparison of data collected from online panels using the application with data from a benchmark face-to-face survey collecting similar measures (the National Survey of Family Growth).

Errors in reported ages and dates in surveys of adult mortality: A record linkage study in Niakhar (Senegal)

Sibling survival histories are a major source of adult mortality estimates in countries with incomplete death registration. We evaluate age and date reporting errors in sibling histories collected during a validation study in the Niakhar Health and Demographic Surveillance System (Senegal). Participants were randomly assigned to either the Demographic and Health Survey questionnaire or a questionnaire incorporating an event history calendar, recall cues, and increased probing strategies. We linked 60–62 per cent of survey reports of siblings to the reference database using manual and probabilistic approaches. Both questionnaires showed high sensitivity (>96 per cent) and specificity (>97 per cent) in recording siblings’ vital status. Respondents underestimated the age of living siblings, and age at and time since death of deceased siblings. These reporting errors introduced downward biases in mortality estimates. The revised questionnaire improved reporting of age of living siblings but not of age at or timing of deaths.

Strengthening Self-Care and Child Care of Adolescent Mothers Through an Event History Calendar

PurposeTo identify events and experiences of adolescent mothers relevant to their own care and the care of their children so as to support the elaboration of a future Event History Calendar (EHC) tool. Design and methodsQualitative study was conducted based on the Grounded Theory, from the constructivist perspective. Data were collected through in-depth interviews with 11 Brazilian adolescent mothers. Initial and focused coding was applied in the data analysis. ResultsThe results present events that demarcate the adolescent mothers' perspectives of child care. Self-care and child care are related to everyday learning, ways of coping, strengthening of various support sources, mastery of gaps in health care, and sensory events. ConclusionsThe different events for adolescents are related to the transience of life, strategies of the moment, and the process of support for pregnancy-motherhood, which is dependent on a network of people and institutions that provide cooperation and participation in the reengagement of the adolescents while encouraging quality of life and development. The events identified can contribute to a list of relevant elements to structure a tool using EHC to guide the clinical practice of nurses so as to strengthen the adolescent's self-care and child care. Practice implicationsIn the context of fragility in the communicative process between adolescent mothers and nurses, the strategy of an EHC can contribute to the expansion of nursing care, aid in developing new coping strategies addressing vulnerabilities, recognize multidimensional needs, strengthen the potentialities and confidence of mothers, and encourage involvement, advocacy and empowerment.

Getting a Job, Again: New Evidence against Subjective Well-Being Scarring

Abstract Previous research finds that unemployment leaves permanent “scars” on subjective well-being (SWB) that remain even after reemployment. However, this research systematically overweighs long-term unemployment, inaccurately measures employment transitions, often does not track individuals long enough to substantiate scarring, and does not always account for age-related changes in well-being. This paper uses event history calendars from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to track complete monthly employment histories of prime working age Americans over a 17-year period, and accounts for the temporal relationships between SWB, age, and employment transitions using a novel fixed-effects formulation. The results suggest that there is some variation in patterns of recovery by employment stability after job loss, but no significant differences were observed by the duration of unemployment spells. Within 2 years of reemployment, average SWB levels reverted toward baseline trajectories across all groups, showing no evidence of scarring. This study brings unemployment literature into better alignment with research on resilience and adaptation. The findings also highlight some limitations of the construct of SWB for assessing the long-term costs of unemployment.

Timing of the Diagnosis of Autism in African American Children.

African American (AA) children affected by autism spectrum disorder (ASD) experience delays in diagnosis and obstacles to service access, as well as a disproportionate burden of intellectual disability (ID) as documented in surveillance data recently published by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Our objective in this study was to analyze data from the largest-available repository of diagnostic and phenotypic information on AA children with ASD, and to explore the wide variation in outcome within the cohort as a function of sociodemographic risk and specific obstacles to service access for the purpose of informing a national approach to resolution of these disparities. Parents of 584 AA children with autism consecutively enrolled in the Autism Genetic Resource Exchange across 4 US data collection sites completed event history calendar interviews of the diagnostic odysseys for their children with ASD. These data were examined in relation to developmental outcomes of the children with autism and their unaffected siblings. The average age of ASD diagnosis was 64.9 months (±49.6), on average 42.3 months (±45.1) after parents' first concerns about their children's development. The relationship between timing of diagnosis and ASD severity was complex, and ID comorbidity was not predicted in a straightforward manner by familial factors associated with cognitive variation in the general population. These findings document significant opportunity to expedite diagnosis, the need to further understand causes of ID comorbidity, and the necessity to identify effective approaches to the resolution of disparities in severity-of-outcome for AA children with autism.

Concordance of Reports of Intimate Partner Violence Across Partners and Measures: The Impact of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.

The Revised Conflict Tactics Scales (CTS2) is frequently used to assess intimate partner violence (IPV), but consistently yields low to moderate interpartner concordance of reports. Interpartner concordance on an alternative measure, the Event History Calendar Interview (EHCI), is largely unknown. We observed limited interpartner concordance of IPV reports on the CTS2 and EHCI, with wives generally reporting more IPV than husbands. Compared with the CTS2, the EHCI detected more cases of IPV, but not differential behavior counts. Partners' posttraumatic stress disorder severity, a common respondent characteristic and focus of IPV research, was associated with low interpartner concordance of reports on the CTS2, but not the EHCI. Additionally, husbands' posttraumatic stress disorder severity was associated with wives reporting more husband-perpetrated IPV on the CTS2 than the EHCI. Overall, the EHCI appears to mitigate some of the problems associated with the CTS2 as a measure of IPV, particularly among more highly traumatized samples.

Online implementation of an event history calendar with formr: A tutorial

AbstractEvent history calendars (EHCs) are popular tools for retrospective data collection. Originally conceptualized as face‐to‐face interviews, EHCs contain various questions about the respondents' autobiography in order to use their experiences as cues to facilitate remembering. For relationship researchers, EHCs are particularly valuable when trying to reconstruct the relational past of individuals. However, although many studies are conducted online nowadays, no freely available online adaptation of the EHC is available yet. In this tutorial, detailed instructions are provided on how to implement an online EHC for the reconstruction of romantic relationship histories within the open‐source framework formr. Ways to customize the online EHC and provide a template for researchers to adapt the tool for their own purposes are showcased.

Nurse to adolescent health communication process: approach to Event History Calendar.

comprehend the Event History Calendar components that are relevant for the nurse to adolescent communicative process, in the context of Primary Health Care. reflective study, based on the Event History Calendar approach, in the relational, communicative, and educational dimensions. best practices for adolescent health promotion are vital and constitute a challenge to nurses. The Event History Calendar is a potential tool for research and care practices to comprehend the needs of adolescents, with reminder of key personal events, culturally and socially specific. The comprehension of retrospective data referring to activities, behaviors, experiences and transitions of life, in certain periods of time, enables dialogue and new understandings about the history of adolescents. the Event History Calendar provides nursing professionals with an expansion of their practice in educational, relational, and communicative dimensions, as well as to instruct care planning and management.

Adaptation of the event history calendar for Ugandan adolescents.

Adolescent and emerging adult risk behavior is a concern globally. Discussing health promotive and risk behaviors with adolescents and young adults can be challenging regardless of the country of data collection and dominant culture. In the United States, event history calendars have been used in both research and clinical settings to identify healthy and risky behaviors among adolescents and emerging adults, and contextual factors that may influence their behavior. After an unsuccessful attempt to employ a particular event history calendar on family life, negative and positive events, sexual behavior and substance use in data collection in rural fishing villages in Western Uganda, the current study aimed to modify the United States validated event history calendar for use with adolescents in Uganda, as a first step to cultural adaptation. Focus groups with 24 college students provided information about ways to modify the event history calendar for Ugandan youth. This paper discusses the modifications of the event history calendar for Ugandan young people.

EVALUATING ITEM NONRESPONSE IN A LIFE HISTORY CALENDAR: AN ANALYSIS OF MEMORY EFFECTS

Memory decline contributes to response inaccuracy and can produce item missing data, especially in retrospective surveys with older adults. Event history calendars, or the life grid approaches, are commonly used to obtain retrospective life history data. As indicated in previous literature, this approach can assist respondents’ memory retrieval. Despite its wide use, the important issue of item nonresponse due to memory effects in life grid questions has received little attention. Autobiographical memory (AM) research has shown that there are two interconnected long-term memory systems: episodic memories of event details from specific remote times in an individual’s life; and semantic memories of the important facts and themes that define an individual’s life history. Episodic and semantic AM may introduce different levels of difficulty in retrieving memory and thus contribute to different levels of missing data. This study examines the effects of both item-level predictors (e.g., types of memories) and respondent-level predictors (e.g., cognitive status, age, and health status) on the likelihood of item missing data in life grid questions. We analyzed missing data in the 2017 Health and Retirement Study (HRS) Life History Mail Survey (n = 3,844), using multilevel logistic regression. The results revealed higher rates of item missing for episodic memories, and that overall respondents’ cognitive status was significantly associated with their likelihood of providing item missing data. Recent residential information was better recalled than childhood information. These results have implications for life course analysis of exposures linked to residential histories.

Tailoring and testing an event history calendar of lifetime sexual partnerships for military Veterans

ABSTRACTResearchers have explored broadly the effects of military service and service-related experiences on sexual and intimate relationships among Veterans. However, descriptions of patterns of relationship functioning over time are lacking. Such information could advance an understanding of the course of relationships pre-, during, and postdeployment and be used to predict relationship outcomes and tailor clinical supports. In this study, we describe an adaptation of a life history calendar to collect detailed sexual relationship and life event histories from military Veterans. With a sample of 112 post-9/11-era Veterans, in the context of a broader assessment battery, lifetime sexual relationship histories were collected by the calendar and concurrently by a standard questionnaire. Assessment order was balanced, and the order effect on individual outcomes, and on agreement between assessments, was examined. Measures collected by the calendar were evaluated for retest reliability, agreement with the standard questionnaire, and construct validity. Results revealed highly variable partnering histories, and a more-than-typical number of lifetime partners reported by Veterans. Psychometric indices provided support for use of the calendar: self-reports were reliable over a 6-week retest period and correlations with theoretically related variables were stronger for variables measured by the calendar data than the same variables measured by standard questionnaire. Large discrepancies in self-reports between assessment methods among Veterans with more complex sexual histories highlighted the need for structured memory supports as provided by the calendar. Other advantages of calendar-derived histories over those assessed by standard questionnaire are discussed.

How to use sequence analysis for life course epidemiology? An example on HIV-positive Sub-Saharan migrants in France

BackgroundLife course epidemiology is now an established field in social epidemiology; in sociodemography, the quantitative analysis of biographies recently experienced significant trend from event history analysis to sequence analysis. The...

Self-administered event history calendars: a possibility for surveys?

ABSTRACTEvent history calendar (EHC) methods have received increasing attention from the life-course surveys that have been used in recent years. According to the literature, the EHC provides high-quality data in retrospective surveys because it replicates the autobiographical memory retrieval processes. EHC interviewing is processed through the visual display of individual life events, phases and transitions on a chronological calendar grid, which allows respondents to effectively link events as well as to identify and correct possible dating errors. Moreover, interactive interviewing facilitates the retrieval mechanism. In this study, we test whether the absence of an interviewer and/or interactive interviewing are associated with a reduction in data quality. This aspect is particularly relevant for surveys, as the absence of the interviewer would allow the implementation of EHC methods in self-administered questionnaires. In Study 1, an experimental design compared the results of self-administered paper-and-pencil EHCs in the presence and absence of an interviewer. In Study 2, a quasi-experimental approach compared the results of an interactive EHC interview with those of a self-administered paper-and-pencil EHC. Neither of these studies showed systematic differences between self-administered and interviewer-administered EHCs. The self-administered mode performs better when the instructions and layout design of the questionnaire are clear and detailed. Our findings suggest that the visual properties of the EHC could be a sufficient condition for collecting good retrospective data in the self-administered mode once the initial burden of the task is overcome.