Large US Sample Research Articles

How to Attract Donations: The Case of US NGOs in International Development

We assess the determinants of private donations across a large sample of US based NGOs with foreign aid activities. Our results show that donations do not depend in the expected way on publicly available information on NGO characteristics that reveal an efficient and targeted use of funds, notably the efficiency price of NGO aid and the degree of specialisation. Private donors rather rely on the frequently offered option to designate donations to preferred purposes – even though this is unlikely to tie the NGOs' hands.

Cannabis use and mental health-related quality of life among individuals with anxiety disorders

Cannabis is the most widely used illicit substance in individuals with anxiety disorders. The aim of this study was to assess mental health-related quality of life (QoL) among individuals with anxiety disorders with and without concurrent cannabis use based on a large representative US sample. Mental health-related QoL of regular cannabis users (N=144), occasional cannabis users (N=181) and non-users (N=4427) was assessed using the Short-Form 12-Item Health Survey (SF-12). Among individuals with anxiety disorders, mean SF-12 mental summary scores were significantly lower (indicating a lower QoL) among regular, but not occasional, cannabis users (by 0.8 standard deviations (SDs) and 0.6SD for females and males, respectively) compared to non-users. Adjusting for sociodemographic variables and co-morbid mood disorders, regular, but not occasional, cannabis use was associated with lower mental health summary and subscales scores. Out results highlight the importance of taking into account direct functional and emotional outcomes, as well as frequency of cannabis used, when assessing the impact of cannabis use among individuals with anxiety disorders.

The Florida Shock Anxiety Scale (FSAS) for Patients with Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillators: Testing Factor Structure, Reliability, and Validity of a Previously Established Measure

The implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) reduces mortality in patients at risk for life-threatening arrhythmias via high energy shock. The Florida Shock Anxiety Scale (FSAS) was developed to measure ICD patient shock-related anxiety. Initial psychometric evaluation revealed good reliability and validity. The purpose of this study was to examine the psychometrics of the FSAS in a large US sample of ICD patients. Participants were recruited via e-mail and the survey was completed online. Ultimately, 443 ICD patients (359 male and 421 White) completed the 10-item FSAS. Means for FSAS were comparable to previously published data (M = 15.18, SD = 6.5). Interitem reliability was good (Cronbach's α= 0.89). The FSAS was negatively correlated with single-item measures of emotional well-being (r =-0.378, P < 0.01), sense of security (r =-0.365, P < 0.01), perceived general health (r =-0.185, P < 0.01), and quality of life (r =-0.216, P < .01), demonstrating discriminant validity. Convergent validity was supported through significant correlations with number of shocks (r = 0.464, P < 0.01) and reported disruptiveness of shock (r = 0.484, P < 0.01). Confirmatory factor analysis revealed that a single (second-order) factor model (χ(2) [34] = 75.34, P < 0.05, comparative fit index = 0.98, root mean-square error of approximation = 0.05) had the best fit. Shock anxiety as a construct can be measured in a reliable and valid method by the FSAS. These nationally representative data suggest that a single score for shock anxiety is an easy to use and appropriate method of assessment.

Measuring Empathizing and Systemizing with a Large US Sample

A large number of people completed one of two versions of the empathizing quotient (EQ) and systemizing quotient (SQ). One version had the negatively phrased items all re-worded. These re-worded items were answered more rapidly than the original items, and for the SQ produced a more reliable scale. Subjects gave self-assessments of empathizing and systemizing, and these were moderately correlated, r≈.6, with their respective quotients. Females had on average higher empathizing scores and males had on average higher systemizing scores. If a female-male pair was chosen at random, the female would have the higher empathizing score about two-thirds of the time, and the males would have the higher systemizing score about two-thirds of the time.

The distance between Mars and Venus: measuring global sex differences in personality.

BackgroundSex differences in personality are believed to be comparatively small. However, research in this area has suffered from significant methodological limitations. We advance a set of guidelines for overcoming those limitations: (a) measure personality with a higher resolution than that afforded by the Big Five; (b) estimate sex differences on latent factors; and (c) assess global sex differences with multivariate effect sizes. We then apply these guidelines to a large, representative adult sample, and obtain what is presently the best estimate of global sex differences in personality.Methodology/Principal FindingsPersonality measures were obtained from a large US sample (N = 10,261) with the 16PF Questionnaire. Multigroup latent variable modeling was used to estimate sex differences on individual personality dimensions, which were then aggregated to yield a multivariate effect size (Mahalanobis D). We found a global effect size D = 2.71, corresponding to an overlap of only 10% between the male and female distributions. Even excluding the factor showing the largest univariate ES, the global effect size was D = 1.71 (24% overlap). These are extremely large differences by psychological standards.SignificanceThe idea that there are only minor differences between the personality profiles of males and females should be rejected as based on inadequate methodology.

The Causal Effect of Corporate Governance on Corporate Social Responsibility

In this article, we examine the empirical association between corporate governance (CG) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) engagement by investigating their causal effects. Employing a large and extensive US sample, we first find that while the lag of CSR does not affect CG variables, the lag of CG variables positively affects firms’ CSR engagement, after controlling for various firm characteristics. In addition, to examine the relative importance of stakeholder theory and agency theory regarding the associations among CSR, CG, and corporate financial performance (CFP), we also examine the relation between CSR and CFP. After correcting for endogeneity bias, our results show that CSR engagement positively influences CFP, supporting the conflict-resolution hypothesis based on stakeholder theory, but not the CSR overinvestment argument based on agency theory. Furthermore, firms’ CSR engagement with the community, environment, diversity, and employees plays a significantly positive role in enhancing CFP.

The relationship between intelligence and multiple domains of religious belief: Evidence from a large adult US sample

High levels of religiosity have been linked to lower levels of intelligence in a number of recent studies. These results have generated both controversy and theoretical interest. Here in a large sample of US adults we address several issues that restricted the generalizability of these previous results. We measured six dimensions of religiosity (rather than just one or two), along with a multi-scale instrument to assess general intelligence. We also controlled for the influence of the personality trait openness on facets of religious belief and practice. The results indicated that lower intelligence is most strongly associated with higher levels of fundamentalism, but also modestly predicts central components of religiosity such as a sense of religious identification and private religious practice. Secondly, we found that a higher level of openness – often assumed to lead to lower religiosity – is weakly associated with reduced fundamentalism but with increased religious mindfulness, private religious practice, religious support, and spirituality. These new results provide a framework for understanding the links between reasoning and faith.

Information Effects of Conservatism in Accounting

We study the information consequences of conservatism in accounting. Prior research shows that information asymmetries in capital markets lead to firm-level increases in conservatism. In this paper, we further argue that increases in conservatism improve the firm information environment and lead to subsequent decreases in information asymmetries between firm insiders and outsiders. We predict and test if this decrease in information asymmetries manifests itself through: (a) a decrease in the bid-ask spread and in stock returns volatility, and (b) an improved information environment for financial analysts, leading to more precise and less dispersed forecasts, and to more analysts following the firm. Using a large US sample for the period 1977-2007 and several proxies for conservatism we find robust evidence consistent with our expectations. Our results are in line with conservatism being useful not only for debt-holders, but also for equity-holders.

Behavioral biases of mutual fund investors

We examine the effect of behavioral biases on the mutual fund choices of a large sample of US discount brokerage investors using new measures of attention to news, tax awareness, and fund-level familiarity bias, in addition to behavioral and demographic characteristics of earlier studies. Behaviorally biased investors typically make poor decisions about fund style and expenses, trading frequency, and timing, resulting in poor performance. Furthermore, trend chasing appears related to behavioral biases, rather than to rationally inferring managerial skill from past performance. Factor analysis suggests that biased investors often conform to stereotypes that can be characterized as Gambler, Smart, Overconfident, Narrow Framer, and Mature.

Intra‐industry conformity in dividend policy

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to study the impact of intra‐industry conformity tendencies on dividend policy among a large sample of US firms.Design/methodology/approachThe paper explores mimetic influences on dividend policy. Consistent with prior institutional research, the paper measures mimetic pressures as institutional prevalence or the pervasiveness of a feature of dividend policy within a firm's relevant environment.FindingsThe results reveal a significantly positive relationship between the lagged density of firms in the industry that pay a dividend and the probability of a focal firm paying a dividend. Moreover, for firms paying a dividend, results indicate that higher similarity in dividend payout among firms in the same industry induces more conformity between a focal firm and average industry practice. Overall, results are consistent with imitation in dividend policy.Research limitations/implicationsThe results support the view that future research on dividend policy should value social and behavioral factors more explicitly in order to arrive at a more overall and consistent explanation of firms' dividend policy. Moreover, the results also illustrate the relevance of alternative theories in explaining dividend policy.Practical implicationsThe results show that intra‐industry benchmarking of dividend policy plays a significant role in the USA.Originality/valueThis study documents the relevance of social imitation mechanisms behind dividend payout behavior and therefore adds to the current knowledge of the impact of behavioral processes on dividend policy.

Donations to US Based NGOs in International Development Cooperation: How (Un-)Informed are Private Donors?

Apart from scaling up foreign aid by NGOs, informed choices of private donors could also encourage an efficient and targeted use of NGO funds in international development cooperation. We assess the determinants of private donations across a large sample of US based NGOs with foreign aid activities. OLS and 2SLS estimations indicate that donors hardly make use of publicly available information on NGO characteristics, notably the “price of giving” and the degree of specialization, when deciding on donations. They rather rely on the frequently offered option to designate donations to preferred purposes – even though this behavior would be rational only under conditions that are unlikely to hold.

Severity of COPD at initial spirometry-confirmed diagnosis: data from medical charts and administrative claims

PurposeThis study was conducted to determine COPD severity at the time of diagnosis as confirmed by spirometry in patients treated in a US managed care setting.Patients and methodsAll patients with one or more inpatient stays, one or more emergency department visits, or two or more outpatient visits with diagnosis codes for COPD during 1994–2006 were identified from the Lovelace Patient Database. From this group, a subset of continuously enrolled patients with evidence in claims of a first available pulmonary function test or pulmonary clinic visit and a confirmatory claim for a COPD diagnosis was selected. Medical chart abstraction was undertaken for this subset to gather information for diagnosis and severity staging of each patient based on the Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD) criteria for COPD.ResultsOf the 12,491 patients with a primary or secondary COPD diagnosis between 1994 and 2006, there were 1520 continuously enrolled patients who comprised the study cohort. Among the 648 eligible records from patients with evidence of a pulmonary function test, 366 were identified by spirometry as having COPD of GOLD stage I or higher (average percentage of predicted forced expiratory volume in 1 second: 60%): 19% were diagnosed at the stage of mild disease (GOLD stage I); 50% at moderate disease (GOLD stage II); and 31% at severe or very severe disease (GOLD stage III or IV, respectively). The majority of patients in these groups were not receiving maintenance treatment.ConclusionThe results demonstrate a very low incidence of early-stage diagnosis, confirmed by a pulmonary function test, of COPD in a large US sample and support calls for increased screening for COPD and treatment upon diagnosis.

In-Hospital Mortality in Acute Ischemic Stroke Treated With Hemicraniectomy in US Hospitals

Hemicraniectomy is a surgical procedure performed to prevent cerebral herniation and death in patients who have sustained a massive ischemic stroke in the anterior circulation territory. Information on in-hospital mortality in patients with large ischemic stroke treated with hemicraniectomy outside randomized trials is lacking. We sought to identify in-hospital mortality associated with hemicraniectomy in a large US sample. We selected our cohort from the National Inpatient Sample database for the years 2000 through 2006 using the clinical classification software codes for acute ischemic stroke (AIS) and arterial occlusion, and identified those patients treated with thrombolysis or hemicraniectomy by the procedure codes. A multivariate logistic regression model was used for adjusted analysis. Among 502,231 patients with AIS, 252 (0.05%) underwent hemicraniectomy, and 7526 (1.5%) were treated with thrombolysis. Compared with the nonsurgical group, patients treated with hemicraniectomy were younger (mean age, 55.6 vs 71.5 years) and had lower Charlson Comorbidity Index scores (92.8% vs 76.0%). The mortality rate was higher in the hemicraniectomy group (32.1% vs 10.8%; adjusted odds ratio [OR] = 3.91; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 2.97-5.16). In patients treated with thrombolysis, mortality was higher in the hemicraniectomy group compared with the nonsurgical group (35.3% vs 13.1%; P = .01). The rate of hospital utilization of hemicraniectomy varied between 0.04% and 0.06% among all stroke admissions; the trend did not change significantly over the 7-year study period (P = .06). The mortality rate in hemicraniectomy-treated patients was significantly lower than in historical cohorts however, hemicraniectomy remains associated with high in-hospital mortality. The rate of utilization of hemicraniectomy for AIS in US hospitals has remained essentially unchanged.

The demographics of neophobia in a large commercial US sample

Neophobia was measured with two large ( n = 1567 and n = 6843) commercial samples of US consumers on a 5-point Food Neophobia Scale. Results were compared with demographic data collected in other samples in the US and in other countries. Gender effects remain unclear; while neophobia appears to increase with age, while decreasing with increasing education and with increasing income. Results are explained by an increased exposure to foods with increasing income and education.

Low vitamin D status is associated with physical inactivity, obesity and low vitamin D intake in a large US sample of healthy middle-aged men and women

The aim of this study was to investigate modifiable predictors of vitamin D status in healthy individuals, aged 55–74, and living across the USA. Vitamin D status [serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D)] was measured along with age and season at blood collection, demographics, anthropometry, physical activity (PA), diet, and other lifestyle factors in 1357 male and 1264 female controls selected from the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian Cancer Screening Trial (PLCO) cohort. Multivariate linear and logistic regression analyses were used to identify associations with vitamin D status. Three%, 29% and 79% of the population had serum 25(OH)D levels <25, <50 and <80 nmol/L, respectively. The major modifiable predictors of low vitamin D status were low vitamin D dietary and supplement intake, body mass index (BMI) >30 kg/m 2, physical inactivity (PA) and low milk and calcium supplement intake. In men, 25(OH)D was determined more by milk intake on cereal and in women, by vitamin D and calcium supplement and menopausal hormone therapy (MHT) use. Thus targeting an increase in vigorous activity and vitamin D and calcium intake and decreasing obesity could be public health interventions independent of sun exposure to improve vitamin D status in middle-aged Americans.

Predicting the EuroQol Group’s EQ-5D Index from CDC’s “Healthy Days” in a US Sample

Obtaining reliable preference-based scores from the widely used Healthy Days measures would enable calculation of quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) and cost-utility analyses in many US community populations and over time. Previous studies translating the Healthy Days to the EQ-5D, a preference-based measure, relied on an indirect method because of a lack of population-based survey data that asked both sets of questions of the same respondents. Data from the 2005-2006 National Health Measurement Study (NHMS; n = 3844 adults 35 years old or older) were used to develop regression-based models to estimate EQ-5D index scores from self-reported age, self-rated general health, and numbers of unhealthy days. The models explained up to 52% of the variance in the EQ-5D. Estimated EQ-5D scores matched well to the observed EQ-5D scores in mean scores overall and by age, gender, race/ethnicity, income, education, body mass index, smoking, and disease categories. The average absolute differences were 0.005 to 0.006 on a health utility scale. After estimating mean EQ-5D index scores overall and for various subgroups in a large representative US sample of Healthy Days respondents, the authors found that these mean scores also closely matched the corresponding mean scores of EQ-5D respondents obtained from another large US representative sample with an average absolute difference of 0.013 points. This study yielded a mapping algorithm to estimate EQ-5D index scores from the Healthy Days measures for populations of adults 35 years old and older. Such analysis confirms it is feasible to estimate mean EQ-5D index scores with acceptable validity for use in calculating QALYs and cost-utility analyses based on the overall model fit and relatively small differences between the observed and the estimated mean scores.

Measurement of internalized homonegativity in gay and bisexual men in Uganda: Cross-cultural properties of the Internalized Homonegativity scale

Internalized homonegativity (IH) measures the internalization of homophobia in gay and bisexual men. We obtained data on Ross and Rosser's 26-item IH scale from 216 gay and bisexual men in Kampala, Uganda and used confirmatory factor analysis to compare the structure of the Ugandan responses to those of a large US sample of gay and bisexual men. The data indicated that the structure of a reduced 8-item version of the scale was closely matched between the US and Ugandan samples. The three factors that consistently emerged were personal comfort with being gay; social comfort with other gay people; and public identification as being gay. Men who experienced violence or abuse for being gay had significantly higher scores on the personal discomfort with being gay subscale. These data indicate that the structure of IH in gay and bisexual men in East Africa is congruent with that in equivalent western samples and that the IH scale is cross-culturally robust.

Examining the interrelationships between supply chain integration scope and supply chain management efforts

In this article, we study the concept of supply chain integration scope by comparing firms that involve immediate supply chain partners in their strategic efforts (narrow supply chain scope) versus firms that involve supply chain partners beyond the immediate level, for example second tier suppliers and end customers (broad supply chain scope). By relying on Coordination Theory and expanding upon Frohlich and Westbrook's (2001) ‘arcs of integration’ principle, we propose that supply chain integration scope and the type of supply chain management efforts deployed by firms are correlated. We use data from a large sample of US and European firms to explore the association between supply chain integration scope and supply chain management efforts. The results show that supply chain integration scope can be predicted by a firm's supply chain management efforts. The implications of our results for practising managers are also offered. Our results suggest that supply chain managers should consider the practices identified in this study while deciding on the appropriate level of supply chain integration scope, i.e., which extended supply chain members to include in their strategic planning efforts.

Specific podocin mutations determine age of onset of nephrotic syndrome all the way into adult life

In steroid-resistant nephrotic syndrome (SRNS) Machuca et al. report that mutations of the recessive podocin gene cause adult-onset SRNS if the R229Q genetic variant occurs in a compound heterozygous state with another podocin mutation. Learning to tell apart the specific allele combinations of podocin mutations will be important for prognosis, genetic counseling in living related kidney donation, accurate etiologic classification within treatment studies, and the understanding of podocin function.

Sleep Duration Associated with Mortality in Elderly, but not Middle-Aged, Adults in a Large US Sample

To explore age differences in the relationship between sleep duration and mortality by conducting analyses stratified by age. Both short and long sleep durations have been found to be associated with mortality. Short sleep duration is associated with negative health outcomes, but there is little evidence that long sleep duration has adverse health effects. No epidemiologic studies have published multivariate analyses stratified by age, even though life expectancy is 75 years and the majority of deaths occur in the elderly. Multivariate longitudinal analyses of the first National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey using Cox proportional hazards models. Probability sample (n = 9789) of the civilian noninstitutionalized population of the United States between 1982 and 1992. Subjects aged 32 to 86 years. In multivariate analyses controlling for many covariates, no relationship was found in middle-aged subjects between short sleep of 5 hours or less and mortality (hazards ratio [HR] = 0.67, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.43-1.05) or long sleep of 9 hours or more and mortality (HR = 1.04, 95% CI 0.66-1.65). A U-shaped relationship was found only in elderly subjects, with both short sleep duration (HR = 1.27, 95% CI 1.06-1.53) and long sleep duration (HR = 1.36, 95% CI 1.15-1.60) having significantly higher HRs. The relationship between sleep duration and mortality is largely influenced by deaths in elderly subjects and by the measurement of sleep durations closely before death. Long sleep duration is unlikely to contribute toward mortality but, rather, is a consequence of medical conditions and age-related sleep changes.