Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related death among men and women in the United States, with more than 234,000 persons diagnosed yearly (1). Most diagnoses are made at a late stage when the cancer is more difficult to treat (1). Until 2011, there was not broad evidence that any one type of screening reduced lung cancer mortality. However, the National Lung Screening Trial clearly demonstrated that annual low-dose computed tomography (LDCT) can reduce lung cancer deaths by up to 20% in high-risk populations (ie, people aged 55–74 y who have a ≥30-pack-year smoking history and who, if former smokers, had quit within the previous 15 years) (2). Subsequently, in 2014, the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) (3) endorsed LDCT screening for high-risk persons, resulting in changes to the reimbursement policies of private and public insurers. Despite endorsements and new reimbursement policies favoring LDCT screening, uptake is low among high-risk persons (3.9% based on the 2015 National Health Interview Survey) (4). In 2014, we showed that the United States had 203 active LDCT screening centers and that most were in the Northeast and the East North Central states (5). In 2015, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services introduced insurance coverage and associated billing codes for LDCT screening. An updated assessment of the landscape of LDCT screening in the United States is now needed to determine the extent of geographic variation in LDCT screening availability and to identify regions for program expansion based on potential demand.

The rate of job loss has been on a secular decline for the last four decades or longer. Changes in demographics or industry composition do not account for the trend. This paper seeks to identify possible sources of this decline using a simple labor matching model with two types of workers, experienced and inexperienced, where the former type faces a risk of skill loss during unemployment. When the skill loss occurs, the worker is required to restart his career and thus suffers a drop in his wage. I show that a higher risk of skill loss results in a lower job separation rate, because workers are willing to accept lower wages in exchange for keeping their jobs. Various other potential hypotheses are also examined in the model.

With the ongoing open data trend, various fields have published free public access data, providing new resources for psychological studies. At present, psychological field has not benefit much from this trend. This article collected and categorized databases that bear psychological value, introduced four methods to access open data, and listed examples from nine fields that utilized open data. Open data has the advantages of massive sample, flexible analysis and efficient execution, but also faces the challenges from data reuse reliability, psychological, protocol and technological issues.

Das Federal Reserve Board führte im Jahr 2016 im Zuge der „Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking (SHED)“zum vierten Mal eine Umfrage über Haushaltsökonomie und Entscheidungsfindungen durch, um das Wohlergehen US-amerikanischer Haushalte zu erforschen. Zu den Themen der Umfragen gehörten dabei beispielsweise Informationen über das allgemeine finanzielle Wohlergehen der Menschen, Einkommens- und Sparverhalten, Zugang zu Bank- und Kreditwesen, Bildung und Humankapital, Studienkredite oder Ruhestandsplanung (vgl. Federal Reserve Board, 2017a). So konnte unter anderem gezeigt werden, dass weniger als die Hälfte (47%) der befragten Haushalte im Vorjahr 2015 über einen Einkommensüberschuss verfügten und somit in der Lage waren zu sparen. Demgegenüber gaben 16% der befragten Haushalte an, dass sie im genannten Zeitraum Ausgaben hatten, welche die Einnahmen überstiegen. Diese Haushalte griffen dabei auf Erspartes zurück, bekamen finanzielle Hilfe aus dem Familien- oder Freundeskreis, oder verschuldeten sich (vgl. Federal Reserve . . .

2014 年、米国国立公文書館は中期計画の中で、“Make Access Happen” を第一の目標とし、「誰もがNARA の所蔵資料を検索し、発見し、そこから 学ぶことのできるように、全ての資料を電子媒体で公共に提供」することを 最優先課題に位置付けた。さらに2017 年には、2024 年までに5 億ページを オンライン公開するという目標を設定した1。そして検索結果改善のための キーワード・タグ付けや手書き資料を全文検索できるようにするための文字 起こしを一般市民が行うという“Citizen Archivist”プログラムを考案し、 目標達成に向かっている2。 　近年、日本で著されたアメリカ研究案内も、こうしたデジタル情報資源の 増加を反映している。2003 年出版の『アメリカ研究入門　第3 版』が1980 年出版の第2 版と大きく異なった点は、「電子媒体による資料調査」という 章の新設であった。2009 年出版の『アメリカ史研究入門』も、オンライン 情報に関する章を設けている3。本稿では、まず2000 年代から2010 年代の デジタル化の潮流について概観し、次節以降では2018 年現在の日本で入手 可能な情報資源を検討する。 　所蔵資料の電子化に最も早くから取り組んできた図書館の一つが、議会図 書館である。1990 年、議会図書館はNational Digital Library の創設を掲げ、 5 年間の試行期間を経て1995 年にAmerican Memory プロジェクトが本格 的に始動した。特定の資料を探し求める利用者だけでなく、サイトを散策す 立教アメリカン・スタディーズ

This research seeks to explain contrasting patterns of population stability and decline at both the city and neighborhood levels. Existing research on urban decline identifies several factors that can facilitate or impede population stability, including: the amount of socioeconomic disadvantage, the physical and economic characteristics of a city, local government responsiveness, and the strength of civil society. Using a mixed methods approach combining multilevel modeling and spatial analysis techniques, I test the hypothesis that stronger civil society, characterized by greater collective capacity and a denser organizational resource base, is the key determinant in whether a city will stabilize, grow, or decline. First, the analysis explores divergent patterns of population change at the city level using an original time-series, cross-sectional dataset on 231 cities over four decades. At the city level, strengthening the collective capacity of civil society is an effective way to mitigate decline. Targeting local allocations of Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funding and reducing socioeconomic disadvantage can also stimulate population growth over time. To see how these forces work at the local level, I explore neighborhood variation in Detroit, MI. The analysis looks first at local CDBG allocation decisions and then examines the forces that influence population change in Detroit neighborhoods. Geographically weighted regression results reveal significant nonstationarity in relationships between the explanatory variables and population change. In general, stronger civil society leads to greater population stability. Local CDBG investment strategies, however, tend to weaken the positive effect of civil society with a few notable exceptions. In more racially and ethnically diverse and residentially stable areas, neighborhood organizations effectively broker resources. In these neighborhoods, the combination of a strong civil society and local government investment best predict population stability. Additionally, concentrated disadvantage consistently proves the greatest obstacle to population stability or growth at the city and neighborhood levels.

We study the trajectory of maternal employment as children age and assess the factors underlying the smooth increase in mothers’ employment as their youngest child ages. Our results indicate that the rising employment profile is largely not associated with falling child care costs, changes in nonlabor income, or marital dissolution as children age. Differences in educational attainment and wage opportunities are related to some of the increase in employment when children are under 4 years old but do not explain any after that age. We discuss explanations for the rising pattern of mothers’ employment that might be consistent with our results.

This dissertation is consist of three empirical studies in economics. The first part empirically examines the effect of universal pre-k on labor force participation of fertility age women in Oklahoma. I investigate the policy effect from both theoretical and empirical perspectives. I apply the synthetic control method (SCM) to the Current Population Survey (CPS) data to identify the causal relationship between universal pre-k and female labor outcomes. I find that universal pre-k increases labor supply of women aged 25 to 45 in Oklahoma. The second empirical study focuses on how the birth outcomes of US children respond to exposure to Chinese import competition. Exploring the variation in US trade exposure driven by China’s supply-side productivity changes and falling in trade costs, I find evidence that the rise of Chinese exports to US is not harmful to newborn health and infant mortality; instead, empirical evidence shows that the percentage of low birth weight infants in US counties is largely reduced by the increase in US-China trade volume. In the last chapter, I develop a nonparametric partial identification approach to bound transition probabilities under various assumptions on the measurement error and mobility processes. This approach is applied to panel data from the United States to explore short-run mobility before and after the Great Recession.

Men and women have distinct marriage patterns over the lifecycle. In the contemporary USA, marriages for women are concentrated earlier in the lifecycle, whereas for men they are spread out later in the lifecycle. In particular, this means that men are more likely than women to get married in middle age and beyond. This difference is especially pronounced for remarriages — men are far more likely than women to remarry after the age of 30. As a result, there are far more single women than single men over the age of 40. This difference in remarriage patterns cannot be explained by the presence of children — in fact, among divorced women, those with children are more likely to remarry than those without. I investigate how the gains from marriage change over the lifecycle for men and women to understand whether these observed marriage patterns are driven by changes in the value of marriage, as opposed to being products of equilibrium sorting. I develop an equilibrium search and matching model that incorporates an aging process. This allows the model to capture both the lifecycle dynamics of marriage and divorce decisions as well as the impact of local population supplies on equilibrium matching outcomes. Using data from a large cross-sectional survey of the USA, I structurally estimate the model for 20 large city-level marriage markets. I recover an estimate of the gains from marriage, represented by a marital production function, in terms of the ages of husbands and wives. I find that marital output drops off twice as steeply with respect to female age, compared to male age. This suggests that women remarry less because the benefits are smaller, not just because of reduced availability of single men. Finally, I estimate a model in which people are characterized by their education and race in order to capture assortative mating along these dimensions. The results concerning age do not qualitatively change. I find large differences in marital output based on college attainment, but not race.

This paper investigates demographic, socioeconomic, political, and contextual factors associated with attitudes toward U.S. immigration. Our innovative study integrates data from the General Social Survey and American Community Survey between 2004-2016. The models include individual-level and county-level variables. We estimate generalized ordered logit models that allow for a better understanding of associations between immigration attitudes and independent variables. We explore disaggregated categories of several independent variables. Results suggest that support to immigration has been increasing over time. Overall, results are suggestive of a race and social class divide in terms of attitudes towards immigration. Non-whites, people with lower levels of racial resentment, those with higher educational attainment, and people who live in counties with higher proportions of college graduates are more likely to be pro-immigration. In contrast, people at the lower end of the occupational stratum, such as those working in areas related to natural resources, construction, maintenance, production, transportation, moving services, and the military are less likely to support immigration. In addition, those between 18 and 24 years of age, non-Protestants, people not living in the South Atlantic region, and those with liberal political inclinations are more likely to be pro-immigration. Finally, our findings also suggest that exposure to immigrants might shape attitudes towards this issue. For example, people who at 16 years of age lived in areas that tend to have higher proportions of foreign-born individuals and those living in counties with higher proportions of immigrants are more likely to support immigration.

Using household-level data from 1980 to 2010, we examine whether economic freedom, as measured by the Economic Freedom of North America Index, has similar effects on white household income as it does on black household income. Our findings suggest that the positive effect of economic freedom found in most studies affects black households less than white households. Further, using the Oaxaca decomposition, our results show that economic freedom is an important factor explaining the gap between black and white household incomes.

Using the IPUMS-USA data for the years 1960–2015, this study examines trends in the effect of occupational feminization on occupational pay in the U.S. labor market and explores some of the mechanisms underlying these trends. The findings show that the (negative) association between occupational feminization and occupational pay level has declined, becoming insignificent in 2015. This trend, however, is reversed after education is controlled for at the individual as well as the occupational level. The two opposite trends are discussed in light of the twofold effect of education: (1) the entry of women into occupations requiring high education, and (2) the growing returns to education and to occupations with higher educational requirements. These two processes have concealed the deterioration in occupational pay following feminization. The findings underscore the significance of structural forms of gender inequality in general, and occupational devaluation in particular.

Inter-regional migration is supposed to be driven by income inequality and usually viewed as the primary mechanism by which the U.S. labor market adjusts to the income disparity across regions. However, the migration mechanism has failed to equalize the income disparity in the last thirty-five years. This paper investigates the role of housing supply on inter-regional migration based on MSA level data. The regression results show that the housing supply constraints will stimulate the response in housing price growth but mitigate the response in population growth to employment shock. The slower population growth in lower elastic MSAs could be partially explained by their less responses to labor demand shock in employment. And I find that positive labor demand shocks increase population or employment through mitigating out-migrations, rather than absorb more in-migrations. However, the housing supply constraints accelerate the out-migrations, slow down the income convergence rate across MSAs and even exacerbate the regional income inequality in the last thirty-five years. Further, the friction of inter-regional migration leads to a significant difference in demographic structure between two groups. MSAs with higher housing supply elasticities seemed to provide more opportunities to . . .

Background Recent trends in alcoholic liver disease, alcohol‐related emergency room admissions, and alcohol use disorder prevalence as measured by general‐population surveys have raised concerns about rising alcohol‐related morbidity and mortality in the United States. In contrast, upward trends in per capita alcohol consumption have been comparatively modest. Methods To resolve these discordant observations, we sought to examine trends in the prevalence of alcohol use and binge drinking from 6 regularly or periodically administered national surveys using a meta‐analytic approach. Annual or periodic prevalence estimates for past‐12‐month or past‐30‐day alcohol use and binge drinking were estimated for available time points between the years 2000 and 2016. Estimates were combined in a random‐effects regression model in which prevalence was modeled as a log‐linear function of time to obtain meta‐analytic trend estimates for the full population and by sex, race, age, and educational attainment. Results Meta‐analysis–derived estimates of average annual percentage increase in the prevalence of alcohol use and binge drinking were 0.30% per year (95% CI: 0.22%, 0.38%) and 0.72% per year (95% CI: 0.46%, 0.98%), respectively. There was substantial between‐survey heterogeneity among trend estimates, although there was notable consistency in the degree to which trends have impacted various demographic groups. For example, most surveys found that the changes in prevalence for alcohol use and binge drinking were large and positive for ages 50 to 64 and 65 and up, and smaller, negative, or nonsignificant for ages 18 to 29. Conclusions Significant increases in the prevalence of alcohol use and of binge drinking over the past 10 to 15 years were observed, but not for all demographic groups. However, the increase in binge drinking among middle‐aged and older adults is substantial and may be driving increasing rates of alcohol‐related morbidity and mortality.

Background There is evidence that low‐level alcohol use, drinking 1 to 2 drinks on occasion, is protective for cardiovascular disease, but increases the risk of cancer. Synthesizing the overall impact of low‐level alcohol use on health is therefore complex. The objective of this paper was to examine the association between frequency of low‐level drinking and mortality. Methods Two data sets with self‐reported alcohol use and mortality follow‐up were analyzed: 340,668 individuals from the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) and 93,653 individuals from the Veterans Health Administration (VA) outpatient medical records. Survival analyses were conducted to evaluate the association between low‐level drinking frequency and mortality. Results The minimum risk drinking frequency among those who drink 1 to 2 drinks per occasion was found to be 3.2 times weekly in the NHIS data, based on a continuous measure of drinking frequency, and 2 to 3 times weekly in the VA data. Relative to these individuals with minimum risk, individuals who drink 7 times weekly had an adjusted hazard ratio (HR) of all‐cause mortality of 1.23 (p < 0.0001) in the NHIS data, and individuals who drink 4 to 7 times weekly in the VA data also had an adjusted HR of 1.23 (p = 0.01). Secondary analyses in the NHIS data showed that the minimum risk was drinking 4 times weekly for cardiovascular mortality, and drinking monthly or less for cancer mortality. The associations were consistent in stratified analyses of men, women, and never smokers. Conclusions The minimum risk of low‐level drinking frequency for all‐cause mortality appears to be approximately 3 occasions weekly. The robustness of this finding is highlighted in 2 distinctly different data sets: a large epidemiological data set and a data set of veterans sampled from an outpatient clinic. Daily drinking, even at low levels, is detrimental to one's health.

This study looks into the recent trend of obstetric unit closures in rural areas, seeking to obtain a causal estimate of the effects of closure on birth outcomes and the use of prenatal care by utilizing an event study methodology. This event study serves two purposes, to provide a picture of the dynamic path of the effects of closure and to probe the key assumptions behind difference-indifferences in the context of this problem. The main analysis is conducted at the individual level on the Natality Detail Files of the CDC. Overall, we find little evidence that closure causes a significant decline in either birth outcomes or the use of prenatal care, likely because even prior to closure, expectant mothers were circumventing their nearest hospital for a farther, more modern one.

Influenza causes thousands of illnesses and deaths annually in the United States. In part, this is a product of rapid changes in influenza genetics, resulting in different variants than a previous season. Influenza virus traverses landscapes by infecting susceptible hosts, thus allowing seasonal influenza to move great distances due to the mobility of humans who occupy diverse natural, social, and built environments. Using H3N2 influenza viral sequences from Minnesota in the 2012-2013 influenza season we explored relationships between the diversity of influenza genetics and the environments in which humans live. Landscape genetic methods were used to test for relationships between genetic diversity of influenza viruses with different concepts of distance separating the viruses in time and space. Additional analyses were used to identify relationships between influenza genetic evolution and socio-environmental characteristics of Minnesota zip code tabulation areas (ZCTAs) where those viruses were isolated. Influenza hospitalization data in Minnesota ZCTAs was also analyzed with spatial and statistical methods to compare differences and similarities between environmental features driving influenza genetic evolution and influenza morbidity. Findings indicated a complex genetic landscape with few significant correlations between genetic distance and other distance concepts. Elderly populations and populations without health insurance were found to be drivers of H3 hospitalizations. The synthesis of information from theses analyses can be used to inform our overall understanding of influenza diffusion and will allow for more targeted and effective public health prevention strategies.

BACKGROUND: Although prior studies have explored the demographic and health factors that influence the relationship between disability and employment for working-age adults, relatively little is known about how living arrangements and gender affect this relationship. OBJECTIVE: This study addresses that gap in knowledge by examining how employment status varies by gender and living arrangements for working-age adults with disabilities. METHODS: Using 2014 American Community Survey (ACS) data, we used logistic regression analysis to estimate the likelihood of employment by gender and living arrangement in a nationally representative sample of 195,236 adults (18-64 years old) with disabilities. RESULTS: More than one-third of working-age adults with disabilities were employed (37.7% of men and 31.7% of women, p < 0.001). Both men and women who lived alone had higher odds of employment, compared with living with a spouse only, but the difference was more pronounced among women (OR for men: 1.5, p < 0.001; OR for women: 3.3, p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: The amount of support that working-age adults with disabilities need to successfully participate in employment may vary by both gender and living arrangement, and both factors should be taken into account in designing programs and targeting outreach efforts to support individuals with disabilities.

Between 2000 and 2010, the percentage of the US population residing in urban areas increased by over 12% (US Census Bureau 2011). Using variables to predict urbanization (proximity and economic variables, among others) and population projections, we expect the results of the 2020 decennial census to demonstrate the same trend. This thesis research will examine how the growth of Urbanized Areas in the United States will impact funding for rural transit through the FTA § 5311 formula funding program after the 2020 Census. Transit agencies in the US receive federal funding based on their urban classification, as defined by the US decennial census. Larger geographic areas, for these purposes, can either be classified as non-urbanized or urbanized, depending on the population density of the comprised census tracts. Within the urbanized category, there are small urban and large urban areas. Due to the geographic expansion of metropolitan areas, many cities and counties that were classified as non-urbanized in the 2010 Census could become enveloped into “large urban” areas (this occurs through outward growth). Rural transit agencies that shift to large urban would lose their ability to use federal funding for operating expenses (FTA 2015). This is because 50% of federal transit funding for rural systems can be used to cover operating expenses, while no portion of federal funding urban systems can be applied to operations (FTA 2015). The loss of operations funding could be challenging for rural transit systems, especially for those that do not receive any local funding support. A model has already been produced to identify the areas in Georgia that will likely shift from rural to large urban after the 2020 Census (Nord, 2018 & Douthat, Garrow, Nord, 2018). This research will attempt to extend this model to conduct a national-level assessment for the same issue. The applications of this research are to 1) prepare state Departments of Transportation for shifts in federal rural transit funding; and 2) drive policy change to promote regulatory reform that more fully considers the “trending urban” issue when considering federal funding for transit operating expenses.

Spatial mismatch theory hypothesizes that as jobs suburbanize, minorities and low-income households will disproportionately lose access to economic opportunity. This paper hypothesizes that the context of urban decline also challenges job accessibility. In shrinking cities, growth at the urban fringe not only expands the footprint of the region's urbanized area, but unlike in most strong market settings, it simultaneously hollows out the core, challenging job accessibility for residents. This paper tests this hypothesis by presenting a block-group level model of job accessibility in the Principal Cities of 349 Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs). The model finds that the context of urban decline reduces job accessibility for residents by 6.9%, other things equal. Descriptive statistics are employed to analyze spatial changes in job location over time. The results suggest that as development pushes outward in strong market settings, the core shares in the growth, while in shrinking cities, spatial deconcentration disproportionately weakens the core. This process is hypothesized to lead to the decreased job accessibility found in shrinking cities.