Ongoing Faculty Research

Selected Current & Recently Completed Research Projects

Funding Agency: Office of Naval Research
Funding Amount: $5,156,827.00
Date: 5/1/2001-3/31/2008

Current methods of meteorological forecasting produce predictions with unknown levels of uncertainty, particularly in regions with few observational assets. Forecast errors and uncertainties also arise from shortcomings in model physics. With the ability to estimate the uncertainty in predictions, forecasters would have a powerful tool to make decisions and to judge the likelihood of mission success.  
The goals of our proposed project are to develop methods for evaluating the uncertainty of mesoscale meteorological model predictions, and to create methods for the integration and visualization of multisource information derived from model output, observations and expert knowledge. We will do this by extending the recently developed Bayesian melding approach. We will also develop statistical methods for combining results from model ensembles, taking account of model uncertainty. This will build on the general idea of Bayesian model averaging. We will also develop tools and methods for visualizing predictions of quantities of interest and the uncertainty about them by (i) choosing appropriate quantities of interest for display based on cognitive factors, and (ii) developing appropriate plots, maps, three-dimensional displays, and video displays for decision support.

Funding Agency: NIH
Funding Amount: $1,310,400.00
Date: 8/15/2007-5/31/2011

The goal of our proposal is to develop a statistical framework for probabilistic population projections and for assessing uncertainty in linked demographic-disease models. The most common approach to communicating uncertainty in population projections is the scenario, or High-Medium-Low, approach, which has no probabilistic basis and leads to inconsistencies. We propose Bayesian melding as an alternative that can take account of all the available evidence and uncertainties about inputs and outputs from population projection models, to yield a predictive distribution of any quantity of policy interest. Uncertainty is even more important for linked demographic-disease models, when the goal is to forecast future population and disease prevalence in the presence of an epidemic. The United Nations Population Division has decided to assess Bayesian melding as a method for assessing uncertainty in its population projections. UNAIDS has decided to use Bayesian melding as the basis for assessing uncertainty in their demographic and prevalence projections. The specific aims of the research will be: (1) Methodological development of Bayesian melding to assess probabilistic forecasts, to deal with measurement and systematic errors, to provide a framework for model improvement, model selection and model uncertainty, and to develop more computationally efficient methods. (2) Develop Bayesian melding methods for probabilistic population projections, including fertility, mortality and migration. (3) Develop Bayesian melding methods for linked demographic-disease models, including the incorporation of multiple data sources, and the assessment of behavior change. (4) Produce and distribute software implementing the new methods produced by our research.

Funding Agency: NSF
Funding Amount: $281,053.00
Date: October 1, 2007 – September 30, 2010

Information about weather forecast uncertainty, which has been available for some time, is rarely communicated in public forecasts, although it is theoretically beneficial to weather related decisions with important economic and safety consequences. One concern is the difficulty the general public might have in understanding such information. To date, however, very little research has investigated the psychological processes involved in understanding using weather forecast uncertainty in realistic contexts among non-expert users. In order to determine how best to communicate forecast uncertainty to the general public, their needs and information processing requirements must be first understood. This project will conduct both naturalistic and experimental research to accomplish these goals. Then we will develop new probabilistic forecasting methods for extreme events and warnings, and new methods for verifying their performance. Finally we will design and create uncertainty products that are compatible with identified user needs and cognitive requirements. These products will be based on output from the University of Washington regional ensemble system. Some of these products, which provide weather warnings for extreme events, will require the development of innovative probabilistic forecasting methods. Weather warnings for extreme events have important safety implications but there has been little attention, from either the psychological or statistical research communities, given to a probabilistic approach to these issues. Targeted research such as this, using state of the art uncertainty products among non-expert end users is virtually unique and will provide important foundational research for the study of communicating forecast uncertainty.

Funding Agency: NSF
Funding Amount: $86,395.00
Date: 1/1/2006-12/31/2008

In computational statistics, we are developing , analyzing, and validating techniques for representing and propagating uncertainty through a sophisticated modeling system. Our approach uses promising but preliminary results in Bayesian melding. We propose to develop new statistical methods adapted to the challenges posed by UrbanSim (a sophisticated system to model urban development), which include model stochasticity, large effects of measurement and systematic errors, high dimension of model inputs and outputs, and significant running time for the underlying model. In addition to the statistical challenges, however, undertaking this approach makes extreme computational demands; and achieving acceptable performance will require algorithmic advances, as well as sound software engineering. In human computer interaction, among the research challenges, are supporting meaningful stakeholder access to and interaction with complex situations, including representations of uncertainty. Finally, in the emerging area of science and design, and important question is: how can we design and evaluate the system overall, in a principled way, to support such basic values as accurate presentation of results (including their limitations and uncertainties) and transparency? If we succeed in this work, UrbanSim has the potential to significantly aid in public deliberation over major decisions regarding urban sprawl, economic health, sustainability, and other issues. Our system is Open Source and freely available, and has already attracted considerable interest and use. Further, the results in computational statistics should be applicable to a broad range of simulations of economic or environmental processes to inform public policy development and deliberation. Finally, the interaction techniques and findings should be applicable to a range of other stakeholder interactions with complex models and sources of information.

Funding Agency: MacArthur Foundation and UW Institute for Ethnic Studies in the United States
Funding Amount: $29,610.00
Date: 9/1/2004-7/31/2006

This project will explore court officials’ perceptions of juvenile offenders waived from the juvenile justice system to the criminal justice system. An attribution analysis of probation officers’ descriptions, analyses, and assessments of waiver-eligible offenders will be conducted to explore types of characterizations made. We are interested in how notions of sophistication or culpability are constructed by probation officers; are these concepts attributed to internal or external factors related to the youth? In particular, we will explore any differences in probation officers’ characterizations of individuals by racial or ethnic stereotypes or assumptions.  
 
Data will be collected from a sample of juvenile cases directly filed by juvenile court prosecutors in criminal court between February, 2001 and February, 2002. Because of a pending court decision regarding the constitutionality of prosecutors' ability to directly file juvenile cases in criminal court without an amenability hearing, all of the cases filed during this time period were returned to juvenile court for an amenability hearing by a juvenile court judge. These cases allow for a “natural experiment,” where court officials’ assessments of violent and chronic juvenile offenders can be compared. Judicial findings of amenability, in addition to case background information (such as type of offense, extent of injury, prior history) will be coded. Analysis of probation officers’ characterizations and assessments of the amenability of the cases in the probation reports will add to the investigation of how young people are evaluated in contemporary juvenile justice systems.

Funding Agency: UW West Coast Poverty Center and UW Royalty Research Foundation
Funding Amount: $56,033.00
Date: 3/27/2006-9/15/2007

This research studies one rapidly growing exploitative credit market: payday lending. Through observations and interviews, I will assess the association of race/ethnicity, nativity, and gender with the use of payday loans, and the impact of payday lending on economic inequality between the middle class, native-born white majority and minorities and immigrants. This work will provide policy makers needed information about people who rely on these loans; under what circumstances low-income working families come to rely on this lending process; and how it affects their position in the credit market. This research will help advocates and social service providers identify vulnerable populations and assist them with information about alternative credit sources. More generally, it will help build the knowledge base necessary for legislature and executive policy makers to regulate this industry.

This study examines patterns of employment and earnings following incarceration using administrative data for criminal offenders in Washington. It is a replication of studies that have shown declines in employment or earnings experienced by ex-inmates as a consequence of spending time in prison. This work extends previous research by using information from a risk assessment inventory to assess the importance of previously unmeasured factors that may jointly influence the propensity for criminal activity and labor market outcomes.

Funding Agency: NIH
Funding Amount: $145,553.00
Date: 7/1/2002-6/30/2005

Concern about high rates of residential mobility, especially among poor and single-parent families has rekindled interest among researchers and policy-makes in an important sociological question: What are the consequences of geographic mobility for children? The aim of this study is to analyze existing data to determine whether and how residential mobility during childhood leads to a greater risk of economic deprivation and dependency. This analysis promises to advance our understanding of the relationship between residential mobility during childhood and social inequality.

Funding Agency: NICHD/NIH
Funding Amount: $367,801.00
Date: 4/20/2006-4/30/2010

This research investigates the relationship between demographic changes within the family, women's involvement in the paid labor force, and legal structures and social institutions governing employment relations and the care of children using a combination of empirical data analysis and simulation methods. There are three aims in this project. The first is to understand the effects of demographic characteristics, the structure of the economy, and public policy on women's employment, occupational sex-segregation and earnings. The second is to understand how women's employment and the reconciliation of work and family are embodied and reinforced by legal structures regulating employment and institutional arrangements governing gender relations and the care of children. The third aim is to examine how alternative configurations of industrial relations and policy conditions influence fertility patterns, child care arrangements, and gender inequality in the home and workplace. The proposed comparative study of gender, work, and family will help shed light on the relative importance of microeconomic and institutional explanations for women's economic standing in relation to obligations to work and family.

One of the most dramatic social transformations of the latter half of the 20th century involved the influx of women into the paid labor force. Variation in labor force participation, involvement in part-time work, and gender equity in earnings across countries generates important questions about the causes and consequences of women's involvement in the paid labor force. Using data from 21 countries, this project synthesizes structural and institutional explanations for women's labor force participation and earnings and seeks to advance our understanding of women's involvement in paid work and its implications for estimates of gender equality in the labor market.

Funding Agency: NICHD/NIH
Funding Amount: $1,125,000.00
Date: 4/1/2006-3/31/2011

Many national policies and laws, such as reducing health disparities and civil rights enforcement, rely on the measurement of the population by race and ethnicity. There are, however, growing doubts about the problems of reliable and accurate measurement of race and ethnicity in American social statistics. The proposed research will address some of the major underlying issues that will influence the conceptualization and measurement of race and ethnic identities in the years ahead. The specific aims of this research project are to : (1) develop a typology of solo and multiracial identities that can be systematically compared across different survey questions, administrative records, and perceived race/ethnic classifications, (2) explore variations in the patterns of response to different survey questions on race and ethnic identities, including an analysis of with persons change their identities in response to different questions, (3) estimate a baseline model of individual race/ethnic identity(ies) as a function of parental ancestry and phenotype (indexed by photographs) and to investigate how the parameters of this model vary by family background characteristics (birthplace, home language, socioeconomic status), (4) test hypotheses of how context, reciprocity, and peer identities influence individual ethnic choices, (5) estimate the impact of different definitions of race/ethnic boundaries (e.g., single vs. multiple identities) on race and ethnic disparities in educational aspirations and attainment, and (6) develop a theoretical schema of the underlying principles that influence race and ethnic identities in early twenty-first century United States.

Daniel Chirot has started working on his next book, to be called "Enlightenment and Resistance: How progress has changed the world and why so many oppose it." 
 
The Enlightenment philosophers who were so influential in shaping America's Revolution and Constitution believed that progress would inevitably be both moral and material. Increasing human knowledge through science would make us both freer and more prosperous. With time, howevever, the moral and material sides of the Enlightenment have been separated, and the enemies of greater freedom through the enhancement of individualism and science have become stronger. Anti-Enlightenment ideologies took over much of the world in the 20th century, and new, equally virulent versions remain very threatening. Can the Enlightenment project survive the separation of its moral and material goals?

Funding Agency: Rockefeller Foundation
Funding Amount: $150,000.00
Date: 8/1/2005-12/31/2007

This is a two-year, two-part project analyzing the linkage between global retailing and global manufacturing and its implications for the U.S. economy. In the course of this project we will explore two core hypotheses that global retailers have now become the main organizer and driver of the global economy; and that their linkages to Asian manufacturers represent a core organizational feature of this economy.  
 
We explore the Global Retailing/Asian Manufacturing phenomenon for several reasons:  
 
- Understanding the direct connections between global retailing and Asian manufacturing produces a new, more analytic understanding of the decline in U.S. manufacturing.  
- Asian economies have become a regionally integrated manufacturing base for the rest of the world. Since most of international trade is trade in manufactured goods, these economies are also major contributors to the integration of the global economy.  
- Large global retailers currently capture about one-third of the world’s total retail sales (top 250 retailers have sales of $2.6 trillion out of total world retail sales of $8 trillion; Deloitte 2005) and they continue to grow rapidly and expand into new markets. They are the main organizers of the global demand for consumer goods, both in supplier and in consumer markets.  
- A major portion of general merchandise goods sold at large retailers in the U.S. and globally are made in Asia. Thus, the linkages between global retailers and Asian manufacturers represent a core organizational feature of the contemporary global economy.

Funding Agency: Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
Funding Amount: $44,400.00
Date: 8/1/2005-3/31/2007

The project addresses the globalization of retailing in terms of its implications for supplier and consumer markets. As Wal-Mart, Costco, and a few other U.S. based retailers, as well as many European retailers, rapidly expand their retail locations worldwide, they push for the integrated procurement of global merchandise brands, including their own private labels. What are the implications of this process for their suppliers and other types of intermediaries? Does the rapid concentration of global textile and garment manufacturing in China after the end of the multi-fiber agreement portend similar concentrations of other industries in the near future? Very likely the answer is yes. Footwear and toy manufacturing are already concentrated in China, and consumer electronic is well on its way. Retailers drive all of these industries, and therefore we should expect that the transformation of global retailing will also lead to the reorganization of the industrial structure and organization of manufacturing and logistics.

Funding Agency: Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
Funding Amount: $34,300.00
Date: 3/1/2004-6/30/2005

A workshop focusing on innovations in distribution and retailing sectors and their "backward" effects on industries providing products to final consumers. We will emphasize the period of the "retail revolution," the period from 1965 to the present time, a period when mass merchandising and discounter giants, such as Wal-Mart, K-Mart, and Target, have come to dominate the retail sector.

Jake’s current research interests center around the relationships between labor market institutions, the polity, and the structure of economic inequality. He is currently working on three inter-related projects, each one of which examines some aspect of the recent rise of earnings inequality in the U.S. and abroad. 
 
“Political and economic consequences of union decline in the post-accord era.” 
 
This project explores the dramatic shifts in the wage distribution and political environment of the United States during the past few decades. Unions were a key component of the social compact that predominated during the post-War World II years. The precipitous fall in union membership and erosion of union power has removed a vital part of the compact. The project focuses on the various ways in which union decline has contributed to rising earnings inequality and the rightward turn in the polity.  
 
Using data from a variety sources, including previously unreleased data on strike activity during the 1980s and 1990s, components of the project explore the causes and consequences of the decline in work stoppages, the changing relationship between union membership and voter turnout, the effects of de-unionization on rising intra-occupational wage inequality, and the organizational consequences of recent immigration patterns. Portions of the project have been published in Research in Social Stratification and Mobility and Social Forces.  
 
“Executive compensation and worker power: a comparative analysis.” 
 
Using data from various sources, including a survey of nearly all Swedish business establishments, this project focuses on the recent rise in executive earnings and its relationship to declining worker power within firms. While the explosion of CEO and top-level managerial pay in the U.S. has garnered significant academic attention, little focus has been paid to increases in executive earnings abroad. The guiding hypothesis of the project is that higher levels of top-level executive and management pay are linked to declines in the relative power of average workers, with the measurement of worker power varying by country.  
 
“Progressive income policies and pay dispersion: a state-level analysis.” 
 
This project utilizes a unique state-level database and focuses on how levels of income inequality affect the passage of progressive income policies. The project seeks to test the proposition that economic growth coupled with low inequality often triggers public demands for progressive legislation – including policies that reduce earnings inequality. A portion of the project investigates the relationship between relative pay inequality, absolute economic deprivation, and minimum wage legislation. Over half of U.S. states have passed legislation raising state-level minimum wages above the national standard. Controlling for cost of living differences, the project seeks to uncover what economic conditions best predict the passage of laws that increase the minimum wage.

These two projects examine changes in drug involvement, mental health, and suicide risk during the transition from adolescence to young adulthood. Changes in the risk of these behaviors differ; generally drug use decreases during the 20's while the incidence of depression and suicide increase through the mid-20's. The research follows for a two-year period over 1300 youth initially interviewed between the ages of 15 and 18 and who are now between 18 and 23 years of age. The projects look at the heterogeneity in the patterns or trajectories of these behaviors and attempt to explore individual, family factors, and life course transitions that may influence membership in particular trajectories. Of particular interest is the relationship of early involvement/initiation of these behaviors on later levels of drug use and suicide risk and the joint effects/trajectories of drug use and mental health/suicide risk over these ages. Embedded in the second study is a long-term evaluation of a drug use prevention program for at-risk youth.

Funding Agency: UW Alcohol and Drug Abuse Institute
Funding Amount: $20,000.00
Date: 7/11/2004-12/31/2005

This project explores the influence of neighborhood context—e.g., neighborhood conditions—on drug and alcohol use among youth. This study seeks to explore the role of neighborhood characteristics and conditions on the initiation and maintenance of adolescent substance use and answer questions such as whether neighborhood-level variables have a direct and/or moderating effect on adolescent drug involvement in net of individual, family, and peer characteristics? To address the research questions, several data sources will be linked and local neighborhood characteristics (such as poverty and income measures, unemployment, residential stability, female-headed households, racial/ethnic composition and segregation, and rime indices) added for analysis. The Neighborhood effects will be examined while controlling for individual, family, and peer factors in looking at drug involvement and change in use over a specific period of time. It is expected that adding neighborhood characteristics will enhance the understanding of substance abuse patterns and change among adolescents.

With funding over the past decade from the National Institute of Justice and from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (both U.S. Department of Justice), a comprehensive examination of criminal homicide and child abduction murders by strangers have been the focus of data collection and analyses. The overall objective is to describe, and understand, in comprehensive detail the characteristics of lethal violence, using two data sets that emerged from the research. One data set includes the population of murders, solved and unsolved, committed from 1980 to the present in one state. The other data set is a national sample of investigations of child abduction murders by nonfamily members, which includes cases from 48 states.

Funding Agency: UW Institute for Ethnic Studies in the United States
Funding Amount: $6,842.00
Date: 6/1/2006-5/31/2007

Police in cities like Seattle possess an increasing array of legal means for arresting people who inhabit urban space, including new applications of trespass and loitering law. We see to document where, when, and against whom these new tools of urban social control are employed. In particular, we seek to document the racial and ethnic composition of those arrested for violations of these new crimes and assess their consequences for rising rates of incarceration and correctional supervision, spatial mobility and access, and racial and ethnic inequities in these phenomena.

Funding Agency: UW Simpson Center for the Humanities
Funding Amount: $11,000.00
Date: 7/1/2006-6/30/2007

The project will explore discourses of banishment as they relate to the reconstruction of urban public space in Seattle. In re-reading the debates, discourses, and legal texts surrounding the establishment of the "parks exclusion law," that was adopted in Seattle in 1997, I will bring the insights of post-structuralist theoretical perspectives on banishment, exclusion, resistance and subjectivity information into dialogue with an important topic in urban social control . Toward these ends, I intend to engage in a critical reading of the debate over the parks exclusion law and proposed amendments to it and to interview those excluded from parks and other public spaces. This interdisciplinary articulation will be of special interest to those whose research in the humanities has sought to highlight how popular discourse and legal narratives come together in the production of space and shape the subjectivity of the banished.

Funding Agency: Washington State Minority and Justics Commission
Funding Amount: $30,349.00
Date: 1/30/2007-8/1/2008

Recent scholarship increasingly investigates how criminal conviction, mass incarceration and high levels of criminal justice supervision reproduce social and racial inequality. Despite increased attention to this issue, little is know about the effects of legal financial obligations (LFOs) that often accompany criminal conviction. This study will draw on data regarding a sample of convicted felons from the Washington State Administrative Office of the Courts, interviews with ex-felons, and other data sources to investigate the nature and impact of LFOs in Washington State. In particular, we will identify the social and legal characteristics of individuals with LFOs, and analyze how the amount of debt assessed varies by jurisdiction, legal characteristics (such as offense type), and social characteristics (such as race). We will also conduct interviews with a sample of ex-felons in order to develop a qualitative understanding of the impact of LFOs on people’s lives and the reintegration process. Finally, we will evaluate whether the assessment of LFOs in various jurisdictions is a) legally permissible in the state of Washington and b) consistent with legislative intent.

Funding Agency: National Science Foundation
Funding Amount: $148,527.00
Date: 4/1/2004-12/31/2006

In this project we study how matching processes and structural conditions interact to produce various levels of segregation in labor markets. Empirical evidence reveals that labor markets are often highly segregated with respect to the ascribed attributes of workers. Most of the traditional explanations that have been proposed to account for segregation in labor markets can be classified as either ‘supply-side’ (worker qualifications or preferences) or ‘demand-side’ (job requirements or discrimination by employers) accounts. Neither of these accounts addresses the structure of information that links potential workers and employers, or how these actors evaluate the information they do acquire. However, how potential workers hear about vacant jobs, and how employers view referred employees, are crucial parts of the hiring process, and have implications for the level of segregation in a labor market.  
 
Our project has three specific aims: (1) To refine and extend our existing two-sided matching model of a labor market to incorporate key aspects of labor market institutions and the information structures (including networks) that are relevant for recruiting; (2) to calibrate this model with data describing empirical labor markets; (3) to use this model as an experimental framework to generate testable hypotheses about the relative importance of supply-side, demand-side, and matching based mechanisms that can influence the level of segregation in a labor market.

A great deal of research has focused on the negative health effects of early sexual activity for adolescents, but very little work ahs explored the social and relational contexts in which adolescents engage in romantic and sexual relationships. My research agenda seeks to investigate several questions about how relational dynamics affect the sexual behavior of adolescents. This work follows in the tradition of Bearman, Laumann, and Morris, who show that the epidemiological spread of sexually transmitted diseases is in large part a function of the structure of sexual networks, rather than a simple function of individual behavior.

Among those who use multiple regression analysis or its offshoots, the dominant method of modeling an interaction effect of two independent variables on a dependent variable is to include a product variable in a linear estimation equation. Textbook writers and researchers almost always interpret the coefficient for the product variable as describing both how the first independent variable influences the effect of the second independent variable, and vice versa. As a result, writers often claim that interaction effects are “symmetrical.” In this paper I distinguish between the regression surface produced by estimating a product-variable model of an interaction effect, and the causal mechanisms that produce the regression surface. I discuss four types of interaction effects, and show that the meaning of the product variable’s coefficient differs across types. I also show that one should use the same estimation equation for different types of interaction effects. These considerations imply that the usual interpretation of the product variable’s coefficient is almost always wrong, and that researchers need strong theory or knowledge before they can interpret the results of a product variable model as giving information about the causal mechanisms that constitute an interaction effect.

This study examines the organizational outcomes of new Ph.D.s who became assistant professors in graduate sociology departments between 1976 and 1992. Using information in the ASA’s Guide to Graduate Departments of Sociology as a starting point, I have collected data on individual and departmental characteristics for 647 people in this group. I use these data both to describe the assistant professors’ outcomes (what proportion gained tenure?, what proportion moved to another job before being considered for tenure?, etc.) and to develop explanatory models of the determinants of those outcomes (are their sex and race differences in the likelihood of gaining tenure?, does the prestige of one’s doctoral department influence the likelihood that one will gain tenure?, etc.).

This study analyzes patterns of occupational segregation among of 60 U.S. sex-ethnic groups. We use the 1980, 1990 and 2000 PUMS data to identify the structure of occupational segregation among these groups and observe its changes over the 30 year period. After identifying the structure of occupational segregation, we investigate the meaning of its dimensions, especially whether they reflect horizontal or vertical differentiation. We employ an extension of Bayesian latent-space approaches for binary data (Hoff et al. 2002, Hoff 2003) so that we can assess the statistical reliability of groups’ positions in multidimensional space.

Funding Agency: National Science Foundation
Date: 12/15/2004-11/30/2006

omputational modeling allows a direct connection to be drawn between micro-level behavior and emergent macro-level outcomes, and holds great promise for theoretically driven quantitative research. However, the skills required to understand and participate in this new research have not yet been integrated into social science curricula. This project will consolidate and develop learning materials in this important new area.  
 
The investigators will work on model courses at the University of Washington and Cornell University, publish a Teaching Resource Guide on dynamic modeling, sponsor a workshop on Teaching Simulation at the American Sociological Association annual meeting, and set up an online repository for exchange of teaching and learning materials, including an arena for interactive learning on the World Wide Web. The edited volume on computational modeling, online repository for source code and other materials, and the workshops at professional meetings will assist faculty in designing courses on computational modeling and in integrating dynamic modeling into their existing course offerings. By enhancing teaching and curriculum development, our goal is to improve the integrity of students’ applied training in dynamics within traditional social science disciplines. The short-term result should be a faster rate of adoption in disciplinary curricula and improvement in training quality. This will contribute to a longer-term result of increasing the prominence and integrity of explicitly modeling dynamics in the social sciences. Our recent investments in training current faculty and diffusing tools among researchers will hasten progress toward this long term goal.

Funding Agency: NICHD/NIH
Funding Amount: $675,000.00
Date: 3/15/2002-2/28/2007

This project makes systematic use of current network data to examine the information loss under alternative sampling strategies, and to develop the statistical theory for network sampling. The specific aims for this project are to: Conduct and empirical examination of the impact of sampling design on network ascertainment in the Colorado Springs study; develop the statistical theory and methods for network estimation based on partial network sampling designs; and develop recommendations for practical and efficient sampling designs for monitoring the population dynamics of HIV transmission.

Funding Agency: NICHD/NIH
Funding Amount: $421,776.00
Date: 3/1/2001-6/30/2006

This project will analyze the biomarkers for sexually transmitted infections (STIs) collected in the third wave (Survey 2000) of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health). Primary aims are 1) basic descriptive work on STI prevalence; 2) the development of multiple imputation strategies for missing behavioral and biomarker data; 3) the measurement and analysis of epidemiologically relevant aspects of network location and structure; and 4) multivariate analyses of individual STI risk that explicitly integrate measures of network exposure.

Funding Agency: NIH
Funding Amount: $1,661,253.00
Date: 6/22/2001-5/31/2006

This project uses recent advances in computational methods to integrate the statistical modeling and simulation of partnership networks. The aim is to determine whether the local partnership rules of assortative mixing and concurrency produce the aggregate structural features most important for disease transmission dynamics in high risk networks.

It is widely believed that there is a great deal of collective action and that it has a substantial impact on policy. There are, however, competing views. The proposed research will address these disagreements about the incidence and impact of policy-oriented collective action.  
The research will attempt to improve on past work in three main ways. First, it will address the problem of sampling bias. Past work on policy change focuses on a very small number of issues and cannot claim to be able to generalize about the policy process. The proposed research will analyze congressional action on a stratified random sample of 60 policy proposals. Second, the research will attempt to gauge the amount of collective action directed at each issue. It is possible that collective action often has little impact on policy change because there is too little of it to matter. Third, the research will argue that collective action is often found to have little impact on policy change because of problems in how it is conceptualized and measured. It is proposed that collective action will affect congressional action to the extent it provides information useful to members of Congress–information about the importance of the problem being addressed, the likely effectiveness of proposed solutions, and the hypothetical electoral impact of congressional action.

Paul Burstein is studying the determinants of policy change, particularly in the U.S. Instead of studying one issue at a time, like almost everyone else, he is attempting to generalize about the policy process from a sample of 60 policy proposals, ranging in importance from the savings and loan bailout and the Americans with Disabilities Act to proposals for creating Olympic coins. Among his arguments and findings thus far: (1) Most proposals are on the congressional agenda for only a short time; they either win support and are enacted relatively quickly, or their supporters abandon them. Working steadily over a long period of time to win support for a proposal is uncommon. (2) The impact of public opinion on policy change has been exaggerated in past work. Such work focuses on issues especially salient to the public, and it is on these issues that governments are especially likely to be responsive. Most policy proposals, though, are of little interest to the public, and so they have little impact on enactment. (3) Information is an extremely useful concept for analyzing the impact of interest organizations on Congress. Information provided at committee hearings about the importance of an issue, the likely success of proposed policies, and other matters affects congressional action. (4) Although social movement organizations are often described as both very active in politics and very effective, usually they are neither. Data so far seem to indicate that most social movement organizations do little and are, perhaps as a consequence, ineffective. Work is continuing on more complex models of the democratic political process. 
 
Burstein is also studying the economic and educational success of American Jews, attempting to ascertain its basis both historically and comparatively.

Funding Agency: City University of New York, John Jay College (Open Society Institute)
Funding Amount: $38,453.00
Date: 1/12004-12/31/2004

This project will study how rates of imprisonment and rates of inmate releases from the State Department of corrections (DOC) affects Seattle neighborhoods. Geo-coded release data and addresses (census tract of residence not identifiable specific addresses) of currently confined inmates from DOC will be appended to data files collected from a recent phone survey and census tract data to stuy this toipc. This project is one of several cities to be supported by one Open Society Institute Grant, administered thru CUNY, John Jay College.

Funding Agency: National Institute of Justice
Funding Amount: $206,550.00

This project uses the labor stratification and crime perspective to study how employment, unemployment, and marginal employment at the individual level affect criminal participation. It also examines how neighborhood (census tracts) and local labor market (county) characteristics, in particular the distribution of people marginal to the labor force (minorities, and the poor) interact with individual characteristics to influence crime. The first phase of the project analyzes data on criminal behavior of young adults using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 97 (NLSY97) data. The second phase of the project analyzes data from the "Children of the NLSY" data. These second phase data permit study of the intergenerational effects of variations in labor market participation and education on juvenile delinquency.

Funding Agency: NIH
Funding Amount: $993,535.00
Date: 9/1/2005-8/31/2008

This proposal estimates trajectories of substance use and crime through the life course, and builds models to explain those trajectories. It uses three datasets, the Denver Youth Survey, National Youth Survey, and Add Health Survey. It identifies key risk factors from social learning (coercive parenting, delinquent peers, delinquent attitudes, delinquent identity), rational choice (risk of arrest, rewards of drug use), stable trait (impulsivity), and life course theories (high school graduation, employment, marriage). The analysis begins by estimating individual growth curves of marijuana, cigarettes, alcohol, other drugs, and delinquency. It then uses multi-level models tests three hypotheses: (1) A comorbidity hypothesis in which a latent variable underlies one or more trajectories. (2) A stable context and stable trait hypothesis, in which trajectory parameters are predicted by stable traits like impulsivity, and stable contexts, like SES and family functioning. (3) A life course hypothesis, in which life course transitions are treated as time-varying covariates predicting substance use trajectories. (4) A social process hypothesis, in which process variables, like delinquent peers or perceived risk of arrest influence trajectories. We then examine latent classes of trajectories using Nagin's nonparametric mixed model. Finally, we will test our process and life course theories by testing whether their effects are moderated by latent classes (e.g., Are life course persistent drug users immune to the threat of arrest? Do adolescence limiteds learn from life course persistents? Such results have important health policy implications for prevention and education.

Funding Agency: National Science Foundation
Funding Amount: $303,000.00
Date: 9/1/2001-2/28/2005

Funding Agency: National Science Foundation
Funding Amount: $96,342.00
Date: 8/15/2001-6/30/2005

This project examines an important criminological question: Under what conditions might formal sanctions deter crime? It does so by specifying a symbolic interactionist theory of formal and informal social controls, specifying theoretically the conditions under which actors exercise rationality and consider the threat of sanction, and testing such a model using data form the National Youth Survey and Denver Youth Survey, two of the best available surveys of delinquency and crime. The structural equation models for panel data will examine, using the NYS, whether informal controls interact with the threat of formal sanction. Using the DYS, a more nuanced model of rational choice and deterrence will be examined within an interactionist framework, again looking at main effects and interaction. Finally, using the DYS, a multi-level model will examine whether formal and informal controls operate in disorganized neighborhoods and not others.

Funding Agency: National Consortium on Violence Research
Funding Amount: $88,391.00

This project examines the intersection of race, neighborhood social organization, and crime and violence in Seattle neighborhoods. Building on recent theoretical developments, the investigators specify an integrated theory of racial heterogeneity, social disorganization, informal social control, and subcultures. This theoretical perspective specifies a causal mechanism in which community structure influences neighborhood crime and violence through informal social control, neighborhood cultural codes and scripts, and routine activities. The project is fielding a new household telephone survey of neighborhoods and victimization in Seattle. The city of Seattle is an important site because of recent increases in ethnic diversity, the low levels of residential segregation (which allow separation of important neighborhood variables, including poverty, racial heterogeneity, percent black, and mobility), and the availability of other sources of data, including police reports and drug transactions by neighborhoods. The study of Seattle also provides an important comparison of research on neighborhoods, structural disadvantage, and violence carried out in larger more segregated cities, such as Chicago, Philadelphia, and Boston.

Funding Agency: Center for Statistics and the Social Sciences
Funding Amount: $20,128.00
Date: 1/01/2007-12/31/2007

Very little information exists with which to estimate the prevalence and incidence of HIV in large parts of Africa. This work builds on an existing cohort component projection model that includes HIV status and can model both incidence and prevalence of HIV by sex and age. In its current form this model is fit to sex-age-specific counts of deaths using a maximum likelihood method. We will improve the model in various ways and implement Bayesian melding to assess uncertainty in model inputs and outputs. High quality data from a demographic surveillance site in South Africa will be used to test and validate the model and to compare the Bayesian melding version to the maximum likelihood version. Outputs of this research will include an article that describes and compares the maximum likelihood and Bayesian melding versions of the model, another article that describes the substantive results of running the Bayesian melding version of the model on the South African data, an R package that implements the cohort component projection model with either or both maximum likelihood and Bayesian melding, and an NIH R-series grant proposal.

Funding Agency: NIH/NICHD
Funding Amount: $250,000.00
Date: 9/21/2007-8/31/2012

This subconract supports design and implementation of a data management system for the MIPopLab DSS in Cambodia. This is a subcontract from R01 hosted at the University of California Los Angeles (Heuveline, PI).

Clark’s recent work has pursued five threads: simulation-based studies of the impact of HIV on African populations, methods development to improve the value of estimated and modeled results, empirical investigation of migration and mortality in southern Africa, methods to improve the management and analysis of longitudinal population data, and capacity development for population and health research in Africa and Asia. 
 
Clark’s microsimulator has been used to investigate the long-term demographic and epidemiologic effects of HIV on African populations, and how those impacts are affected by behavioral and pharmaceutical interventions. Investigations of the impacts of HIV epidemics on the elderly and the potential effects of male circumcision interventions have produced results that are directly relevant to policy-making discussions. Ongoing work examines the effects of age and sexual activity mixing on the dynamics of HIV epidemics.  
 
Clark has participated in a collaboration with Adrian Raftery and colleagues that explores the application of the Bayesian melding method to epi-demographic models and demographic projection models more generally. UNAIDS has recently adopted this method to estimate their EPP model that is used to relate the HIV prevalence of antenatal clinic attendees to HIV prevalence in the population as a whole. Ongoing work with the UN Population Division will explore the potential of this method to improve the prediction intervals around the main UN population projections. 
Empirical work in conjunction with Mark Collinson and other colleagues at the Agincourt Health and Population Unit of the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa has explored the relationship between migration and mortality revealing that significant numbers of urban migrants are coming home to rural areas to die when they become seriously sick, most likely with HIV. These results have important implications for policy affecting the allocation or health care resources and development of interventions aimed at preventing HIV. Additional lines of work with Agincourt are examining the relationships between household socio-economic status, migration and health indicators; and describing the mortality experienced by orphans and children of chronically sick parents. 
 
Over a long period Clark has been concerned with the quality of longitudinal population and health data collected in the developing world, and he has recently published two methodological developments aimed at improving the quality of longitudinal data, the efficiency with which they are managed and the ability of scientists to use them. This work is moving forward to address issues of data access and data sharing from long-term demographic and health surveillance systems in the developing world. 
 
Aimed at improving the ability of developing world scientists to produce quality scientific results that can affect policy, for the past several years Clark has taught demography, statistics and data management courses to Masters-level students from Africa and Asia at the School of Public Health at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa.  
 
Much of Clark’s work in Africa is done in association with the INDEPTH Network of demographic and health surveillance system sites in Africa, Asia and Latin America, and with particular sites who are members of that network. An ongoing project with INDEPTH is gathering mortality data from all 37 member sites and will soon produce a volume that presents these data in a comparative perspective and identifies common underlying age-patterns or mortality. 
 
Research Plans: Clark’s future work will continue directly along the lines of his existing work described above. In particular, he plans to focus significant attention on his simulation and empirical work based in southern Africa. These two interdigitate well and inform each other.

Funding Agency: NIH/NIA
Funding Amount: $90,000.00
Date: 9/15/2006-06/30/2008

This grant supports the development of policy, procedures and technology to promote access to rich sources of longitudinal health and population data at DSS sites in Africa that up to now have been little used by the international research community.

Funding Agency: NIH/FIC Fogarty International Center
Funding Amount: $125,000.00
Date: 9/21/2005-7/31/2006

This is a Fogarty International grant to coordinate training and research on issues related to Global Health. Sam serves as an instructor in the program.

Funding Agency: NIH/NIA
Funding Amount: $1,500,000.00
Date: 9/30/2007-8/31/2012

This is a 'global partnerships' grant to build infrastructure at the Agincourt DSS site in South Africa and investigate the impacts of antiretroviral drug rollout and the livelihood effects of complex transitions being experienced by the Agincourt study population.

This project examines the conditions under which the political integration of Muslims as distinctive communities with political interests defined both by immigration and ethnic origins and distinctive religious interests.

In this project we wish to respond to the growing call to identify causal mechanisms in collective action by exploring the emergence of collective action and the structure of movements in various historical contexts: the 16th Century Reformation, the collapse of Communism in 1989, the rise of  
pro-democracy activism in South Korea, etc.

This project tries to understand the dynamics of religious change in Europe. Moving beyond the limits of the secularization vs. rational choice debate, we analyze typically "supply" and "demand" side factors that may explain puzzling patterns of religious revival and decline across the region. Drawing on quantitative evidence as well as in-depth exploration of the cases, we seek to expand the explanatory power of the religious economies model.

This project seeks to improve our models of collective action under circumstances of great uncertainty and cost. We will use British naval archives to build a data set on naval rebellion during the era of Britain's rise to world naval supremacy.

Funding Agency: National Science Foundation and UW Institute for Ethnic Studies in the United States
Funding Amount: $198,449.00
Date: 9/1/2005-2/28/2007

This project will use publicly available data to link the victims of southern lynching in the South between 1992 and 1930 with their household and person records in the original enumerators' manuscripts. It will begin with an existing public inventory of confirmed lynchings in ten southern states and conduct a search for the victim's census records in the decennial census that immediately preceded the lynching (e.g., using teh 1880 manuscript census to search for a victim who was lynched in 1885). Once a successful match of the records is made, all of the information contained in the household record and person records for all co-resident individuals will be entered into the database. The resulting database will expand significantly the information that is available for the victims of southern lynching and, therefore, will permit quantitative and qualitative analyses of lynching that have not been possiblewith existing databases. All of the information to be used in the construction of the new database is publicly available. The confirmed inventory of southern lynch victims was created between 1986 and 1990, using previously published inventories and historical newspapers from several southeastern states. The census manuscripts for 1880, 1900, 1910, and 1920 are publicly available through Ancestry.Com because the 72-year imposition of confidentiality on census data has expired for all four censuses.

Funding Agency: National Science Foundation
Funding Amount: $199,843.00
Date: 9/1/2003-8/31/2006

Internal migration reshaped the African American population throughout the 20th century. It produced a dramatic shift in the regional distribution of the black population, ending its long-standing and overwhelming concentration in the South. It turned a predominantly rural and agricultural population into urbanites. As a result, it strongly influenced racial dynamics in the South and non-South, alike. The larger project will investigate a significant, but thus far understudied aspect of this broader demographic phenomenon--African American migration to the West from 1910 through 2000. Our general goals for the project are to gain a better understanding of ho the western migrants were and how they fared after they arrived. We will rely primarily on existing Public Use Microdata Samples (PUMS) from the decennial censuses for 1930 through 2000 to pursue five major substantive objectives: First, we will construct profiles for migrants to the West, including information about a variety of socio-demographic characteristics (e.g., education/literacy, economic status, urban/rural origins, residence, and family patterns). Second, we will conduct comparative analyses that: (1) determine the extent to which western migrants differed from migrants to other regions, or from non-migrants, and (2) assess the amount of variation among the western migrants, themselves. Third, we will exploit the longitudinal quality of the PUMS files to conduct temporal analyses that examine how the migrant profiles, and group contrasts, varied over time. Fourth, we will conduct contextual analyses that consider the extent to which the characteristics of local areas affected the migrants and their situation relative to other groups within the West. Fifth, we will focus on return migration from the West, and how it differed from return migration from the Northeast and Midwest. The new data sources and substantive findings resulting from this project will advance, significantly, our understanding of an important aspect of the Great Migration of African Americans during the 20th century, and the growth of the black population in the West. They will also provide valuable evidence for the investigation of theoretically-important issues related to: interregional migration; regional variation in the experience of blacks and black migrants; relations among racial and ethnic groups in the West,; growth of the black ghetto in the West; racially- and ethnically-determined occupation hierarchies in the West; and the effects of group size on individual socioeconomic outcomes for minority group members.

Funding Agency: National Science Foundation
Funding Amount: $196,305.00

This project is in-depth investigation of the relationship between immigrants and African Americans during six "historical regimes" from 1880 through 1990. It has two major components. The first component uses data from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) for 1880, 1910, 1920, 1940, 1970, 1980 and 1990 to compare the social and economic characteristics of African Americans and immigrants across a broad sweep of U.S. history. The second component combines data from the IPUMS with contextual data for counties and metropolitan areas to determine how the social and economic well-being of African Americans was affected by the size and growth of immigrant populations (or specific immigrant groups)within their urban areas. The project is based on the secondary analysis of publicly available census data, specifically the Public Use Microdata Files for the years 1880 through 1990.

This project is a book-length analysis of how museums, heritage sites and other tourist attractions portray “atrocities,” or historical instances of extreme injustice. Examines atrocity tourism sites connected with the Holocaust, state terror under communism, slavery, apartheid, the “Troubles” in Northern Ireland, the Irish famine, and the genocide of indigenous North Americans.

This project analyzes the different stakeholders in Northern Ireland, and how each is using the medium of tourism to tell its version of the Troubles to a tourist audience.

This project draws on experience with two study abroad programs (Belfast and Zimbabwe/South Africa) to explore both opportunities and challenges associated with teaching in a foreign context.

This project investigates the relationship between the risk of mortality and various aspect of social structure using a micro-sample of the 1990 Chinese Census. Statistical models will be used to assess the relationship between the risk of death and initial, household, village, and county characteristics. The determinants of infant and child mortality area particular focus of the research.