Power Dissertation!

How my dissertation is already half done and also completely awesome:

Minding the Gap

Update

Cleaning up and filling in holes

9 Weeks Left

tethered to technology

okay, this is pretty random

bedfellows

not just random thoughts

One good thing....

Theme song

How long is a book?

Ear Candy

Completely Nuts

New and gorgeous

Work Limitation!

12 Weeks

ASAP

Met with Jason

happy thought

Arielle is way proactive

Occupation

Bang

Distilling

Ticking Clock

People I like

Debt

afterthoughts

not skeered

Today

Not yet

Still alive

On hold

qualitative research

Bummer

devolving

Ethics

Keeping it Real

Climbing back on the horse

a little 911 TLC

My draft isn't awful :)

Update

What if?

Writes like a Monkey

Daubing

Stumbling, not Crumbling

Just an update

favorite things

Gearing up...

Life Difficulties

Latest Tip

Writing in First Person?

In recent news

Life

umbrella of disability

Survey says

Sweet

My Good Friend

Goal

"Disinherited"

Working in a Coal Mine

Software Addiction

Can I scream yet

Paper 1 Model

Sketching Flow

topics in a tumbler

The Two Sides of Work Disability

Back to it then

On a completely unrelated note

Paper or Plastic?

Pearlin in Brief

Data!

Sleeper

Pitch

Times Up!

Met with Chair

Dissertation Cake

Not that Abstract

Some thoughts

Work commitment

Gender Attitudes

Disability Insurance (SSI/SSDI)

Alternate Interpretation of the Literature

Hrumph

Things I'd Like to Know Someday

A brief history of work disability literature

Bare Bones

Meeting with J

Since last meeting with J

Basic Ideas

2009-05-03T14:02:00.007-04:00

This is the deal. I am about to step up and put out. In the next couple weeks I need to try to show the evidence of my dissertorial worth.

This is the plan.

Topic 1: Work Disability and Marriage: Uses NLSY79. Most of this analysis is already done. It needs a pretty new write-up and a little tightening up. Good stuff though.

Topic 2: Work Disability, Gender, and Affective Health: Uses Fragile Families data. This one actually led me to the topic of work disability generally. I did the work on this one in my second year (i.e. three or so years ago), and my crappy writing only underscores how AWESOME I am now. Right?
Okay, so I get to add the wave of data to this which came out in the interim and turn this foundation into the second paper. I just merged in the wave and am ready to see the rest of the story! Oh, and after apparently FORGETTING STATA(!!!), it is slowwwly beginning to come back. And I am soooo glad I am one to document my code in little explanatory statements all over or I could never have come back to it like this.

Anyhow, and
Topic 3: NHANES, IgE, and awesomeness. I don't want to reveal more now, lest some beady-eyed grad student steals it for their own. Cause it's hot hot hot baby. Or at least really f**king on the money. Word.

:)

2008-11-26T19:08:00.003-05:00

You'll have to excuse me for a touch.
I'm surfing out another mental break-down, it seems. I'm getting good at these.

2008-11-11T12:08:00.004-05:00

This is the story: For reasons that you are either well aware or not at all (either way is fine) I have been detoured from my dissertation until very soon.
I have applied my 4 years of demographic training (sans PhD) into a great job, as it was time to be able to pay rent or something like that and times are hard.
But soon (next term) I will be digging back into this thing and trying to finally call this thing done. Yee haw. Wishing for kismet, serendipity, and a lot of luck!

2008-02-14T17:28:00.003-05:00

I've just scheduled to meet with Doug (dissertation committee member #2) on Monday afternoon. I told him I would send him something to read on Friday (tomorrow), as he is well due for an update.

So now I'm trying to get the this proposal draft to the point that I'm okay with showing it (again) to someone.

I spent a good bit of time reshaping the text to fit a more logical progression of ideas, so I haven't added length so much as form and coherence (which is definitely a good thing though). And there's still lots of holes, places to fill in, and a better explanation of the analyses that have/will be performed... So yeah...

2008-02-12T15:44:00.001-05:00

9 weeks until I need to have the whole thing defended... Nine weeks.

I've been thinking about Frank's advice on writing and I can see the wisdom in that... I need to push hard... Nine weeks!

2008-02-11T15:56:00.000-05:00

So my laptop died suddenly a little while ago. Now this Saturday my husband's laptop kicked it too.
Vista + only 1 gig RAM = bad times.
We swept into action and found something much better, again at a good deal.
But still really sucks.

Especially since I got this new laptop, with the shiny new Microsoft 2007 ultimate (for way cheap), I am tethered to this machine like it's a some sort of external organ. I cannot tolerate being away from it, even to share it with another person. I use it for so many tasks I am constantly at it.

I hated joting down any notes on paper, as I invariably lose them at least once- plus my ape-like penmanship. So now I jot down notes in Microsoft OneNote, I always have a looong to-do list, that now goes in Microsoft Outlook. That's also my new database for addresses when I print out labels for mass-mailings (like Hanukkah, but potentially for more.) And that's just for personal use.

It extends well beyond that, but I won't bore you. The point is this laptop comes just short of filtering my blood and keeping my heart beating. This beautiful insidious machine owns me.... But I'm cool with that. Whatever, the future is now and all that.

2008-02-08T13:57:00.000-05:00

Moshe Dayan was an Israeli military leader and politician. The fourth Chief of Staff of the Israel defense Forces (1953–1958), he became a fighting symbol to the world of the new State of Israel.

He looks like a badass right? Besides the fact of being a successful and hardcore Israeli military leader (they're all hardcore), the eye patch is way intimidating. But he didn't wear it proudly.

As wikipedia tells it:

...as Dayan was using binoculars they were struck by a French bullet, propelling metal and glass fragments into his left eye and causing it severe damage. Six hours passed before he could be evacuated and Dayan lost the eye. In addition, the damage to the extraocular muscles was such that Dayan could not be fitted with a glass eye , and he was forced to adopt the black eyepatch that became his trademark...

In the years immediately following, the disability caused him some psychological pain. Dayan wrote in his biography: "I reflected with considerable misgivings on my future as a cripple without a skill, trade, or profession to provide for my family." He added that he was "ready to make any effort and stand any suffering, if only I could get rid of my black eye patch. The attention it drew was intolerable to me. I preferred to shut myself up at home, doing anything, rather than encounter the reactions of people wherever I went."

And perhaps here you see my angle. Men are tough, because they have no choice really. Historically, they have been saddled with considerable pressure to perform the role of provider. And that pattern more than lingers. Men rarely ask for sympathy. But that doesn't mean the struggle isn't there.

The squeaky wheel gets the research, and men have been taught not to squeak. But just because there's no whimpering, don't think there's no consequences. Consequences that extend beyond themselves.

2008-02-05T16:34:00.000-05:00

I am so glad that I took Allison's course on survival analysis, as that is the method(s) I need to use. Even still, I have to relearn it.

Of course relearn implies that I understood it the first time, which I definitely did not. But the ropes are familiar, and it's not complicated- I just need to know what I'm doing so that I do it right.

Hey, but at least I'm using a method vaguely related to life tables (i.e. Demography- what this degree is supposed to be in). I was worried I was being too sociological, not demographic enough.

Demography and Sociology are like sort of that weird couple that doesn't know their boundaries. Strange bedfellows , sharing the same blanket but not clear on their relationship. It's tough to say where the boundaries of demography end and sociology begin, and if you drew a Venn diagram of them it would look like this:

My demography dissertation has a whole lot of verbosity that can only be described as the worst kind of sociology (my favorite). The kind of sociology that has bad breeding, and will kindly verbally disrobe most any emperor just because.

So it's good then that I'm using a sort of demographic methodology eh? See it's all good.

2008-02-04T15:29:00.001-05:00

So just thought perhaps I should post on what I've been doing, and not just random thoughts that pop in my head.
So confident was I that this dissertation needed to be a book rather than three papers, I plunged forth ~~foolishly~~ boldly and revised my draft accordingly. I've altered my outline into one befitting a book that works much better, and rearranged the text of my draft accordingly.
Also, I've been combing through my code to refine my program/dofile thus far and to very closely attend to missing waves as this is longitudinal data.
I feel good about all of it.

2008-02-01T15:20:00.001-05:00

One good thing about coding now is that I've gotten so much more efficient- which is easy when the only way to go was up.

We spent the first year in this program just learning the fundamentals of stats and the nuts and bolts of demography. Then at the end of the year, we were supposed to produce a paper using statistical software nobody had actually taught us. I was fortunate enough- due to the great mentoring of Dr. Zsembik- to have used SAS doing this kind of thing. I was clumsy at it, but just being familiar was a life-saver!

Then I switched to Stata that first summer, after realizing that SAS didn't readily adjust standard errors for clustering, and apparently that was something one needs to do. But I soon found Stata to be (technically speaking) 'da Bomb. Stata is way easier to self-teach, but you don't learn the things that make coding efficient, such as do-loops. (do-loops, btw, also 'da bomb) So then, when you finally learn this stuff, you're grease lightening!

Now, when I want to change the data in some way, I've probably done that kind of thing before, and also now can do it in relatively few lines of code. A time saver to be sure. Yay me!

BTW, the fabulous Dr. Zsembik also advised me on the importance of having a "cheering section". I'm more then willing to be part of my own cheering section at this point. Yay me!

2008-01-31T14:50:00.002-05:00

Well nobody has suggested a theme song to power my dissertation so I will just have to come up with my own.

There are words of inspiration that were sung in a popular movie back when I was 5 years old. And they're coming back to me now....

wait for it.....

First, when there's nothing but a slow glowing dream
That your fear seems to hide deep inside your mind
All alone I have cried silent tears full of pride
In a world made of steel, made of stone

That's right. I'm talking about the Flashdance theme song. I defy you to find greater inspiration with a peppier beat and more 80's class passion than you can shake a stick at.

What a feeling, bein's believin'
I can have it all, now I'm dancin' for my life
Take your passion, and make it happen
Pictures come alive, you can dance right through your life

Go on now and download the song. You know you want to.

I'm seeing it referred to as a B movie, and perhaps that's right. But there are three reasons why this does not reduce my estimation of the movie.

1) As are the many novels of Horatio Alger, a body of media can be mediocre in form, but at the same time take on great importance due to their resonance with, and embrace by, its viewing public
2) Girl could dance. Did she do her own dancing? The girl could dance.

3) I was 5 years old when the movie came out. When you're five, things are received with greater significance. Thus Scooby Doo will always be a pinnacle of entertainment in my mind. And Flashdance is profoundly inspiring.

2008-01-31T14:36:00.000-05:00

How many pages do you think a word document would have to be in order to be "book length". From my rough and no doubt flawed estimates based on FFF's new book (which was just released and which is the first time I've had my name in a publication, albeit just buried in the acknowledgments- but hey, I love it) I'm guessing I need about 150-180 pages minimum, double spaced and without bibliography.

Anyone know for really real?
Anyone think I can write that much?
Place your bets now :)

2008-01-30T19:17:00.000-05:00

Pandora music is great, by the way. It's this free "radio station" that creates a station based on your favorite band(s). Awesome.

2008-01-30T14:21:00.002-05:00

I must be nuts. My forced embrace of optimism must have undermined by mental faculties. I want to write a book.

As mentioned earlier, our department has followed the lead of some economics departments in giving us the option of a 3-academic-paper-dissertation, instead of the traditional book form. All the students take this option. It's way easier. So why do I want to write a book, given my crazy time crunch. Well I must be crazy.

I put my topics in a tumbler some months ago.

They've been tumbling. The ideas subsequently broke down where they were weak, accreted where they were consonant, and generally smoothed out the rough edges.

While things ostensibly came to a halt in my life, the tumbling continued nonetheless.

They've taken on a life of their own. They've matured into coherent concepts, that now know their place in the world (just as I now do...). They are no longer sophomoric scribblings, or even a daubed beast, but a creature risen- that now only requires me to help make it manifest.

This dissertation wants to be a book, and I'm completely game. I must be completely nuts.

2008-01-29T16:47:00.000-05:00

Spent the past day and a half acquiring, then setting up, the NEW laptop.
Necessity tho I call it, this thing is spoiling me.
It's frustrating at first getting it worn in when you're in a hurry, but this machine is so smooth.
And the new programs are ratcheted up nicely.

If you are still a student and without the new microsoft office software, for the low low price of 70 bucks you can get the full office ultimate package (like 800 bucks of software) until May at this website. Totally legit, excellent deal. And this new program Onenote, I think I love this one...

And I realize anew, I am increasingly DEPENDENT on my laptop. Technology owns me.

And I am so spoiled.

2008-01-28T15:37:00.000-05:00

Friday morning I suffered the misfortune of laptop death. I'm debating whether or not to give it a Viking funeral.
At any rate I am in the process of replacing it with a dandy new one. Wheee.
Updates following :)

2008-01-24T16:45:00.001-05:00

So, I just applied for my degree. Which is optimistic. Let's call it inspired.

Arielle just gave me the best pep talk about how I can do it- how I can totally finish it in time.

Checking the calendar, I see that I have a mere 12 weeks to get the dissertation done. That includes finishing then defending my proposal, and then finishing and defending the dissertation.

Nobody does their dissertation that fast.... But I'm going to plan accordingly. 12 weeks. Let's see just what I'm capable of...

I'm going to need a really good theme song to power me through this. Any suggestions?

2008-01-24T13:33:00.000-05:00

Trying to work with Rel at the coffee shop but can't seem to focus. The reasons are 1) the lack of caffeine in my system (I'm working on that) and 2) the woeful lack of student loans in my account. Where are they?? Did I mention I want a salary ASAP?

2008-01-23T14:35:00.000-05:00

Met with Jason on Tuesday to regale him with more discussion of the inner workings of the immune system than he had signed up for.

He has me giving him my proposal draft by March 5.

We've established, it seems, that completion of the dissertation by the end of the semester is only an option at this point. But I can do it! I can do it!

2008-01-17T19:30:00.000-05:00

Today:

Stood up Arielle for a coffee shop work-date. Girl I am so sorry!
Worked on do-file/data stuff
Emailed Jason (my chair) to reconnect

Today is gray and wet and snowy and rainy and ick ick ick. I am pretending that outside my office (bedroom) window is a warm and sunny scene of cherry blossoms and sculpted gardens. Also the sun has a big smiley face. That's my happy thought for the day.

2008-01-10T14:28:00.000-05:00

Arielle just started a live-journal community for dissertation support group-ing. CLICK HERE to see it. She just started this 2 days ago, and already has 45 people on board. I'm excited, although I know nothing about live journal.

2008-01-09T16:00:00.001-05:00

So occupation is a tricky monkey.

I am interested in occupation to the extent that:

1) work that is physically taxing is more likely to damage health
2)work that is physically demanding is more likely to be too physically demanding to perform, and
3) occupation frequently denotes social prestige, privilege, etc. and should be a partial proxy for resources to preserve health.

So I am starting at least by dichotomizing occupation type into "blue-collar" vs. other....

My occupation variables run from 1979 to 2000 more or less. Census occupation coding changed over this time, with a 1970, 1980, and 2000 set of codings being introduced over the years. NLSY says that 1970 is the "main" set of codes since they have it running throughout all the years. I find this suitable. The question I have to answer is does using this 1970 occ coding adequately capture work type being that the nature of work has changed over the years. My answer is, yeah I think that's just fine. I do. Really.

For the NAS/NRC veteran twin data I had to use for the second year paper, occupational status went back to the beginning of the century. Thus the census coding included things like "peddlers and hucksters". The fact is work has changed sooo much over the century, in more ways than I wish to speculate about right now.

But for my NLSY cohort -that only runs from 1979 to 2004- I'll take the 1970 census categories. Sure. I think it's totally kosher.

The question I'll have to work with along the way is how does type of work, as represented by the Census coding, interact with the emergence and trajectory of work disability. I can't take the subtleties of this for granted. Not too much anyway.

On an unrelated note, I bumped into Jacob and Liz at Mexicali today, for some bonus, unscheduled socialization. Yay socialization. It's almost like I'm not a shut-in anymore. Sweet!

And that reminds me- I still have half a burrito in my bag! Even sweeter!

2008-01-09T13:52:00.001-05:00

Yesterday, toward the end of the work stretch, I endeavored again to read my draft from the first page. By the first sentence I became aware of a serious obvious deficit that I was too distracted before to notice.

This dissertation is the labor of love (well, and necessity) and I am absolutely invested and passionate about the topic. Yet the first sentence (and many following) were soulless drivel. They were words whispered by a nervous girl. My dissertation should start with soul and passion. It should be sweeping and visual, compelling and undeniable. And it will be!!!

My paper should explode on the page like a supernova! Bang!

2008-01-08T16:30:00.000-05:00

When writing text, it's easy to get bogged down in all those words. And I don't mean that in a silly way (of course there's a lot of words). I'm talking about the dilemma of gazing at a word document, to make sure that:

1) the words say what it is you want them to say,
2) they say so in a logical order that makes sense and a reader can follow, and
3) they're not buried in a lot on unnecessarily text that obscures the real points of the text.

In other words, you need to distill it down to get to the real essence.

We have each developed here (or stumbled blindly upon) some method for handling the writing process and trying to clarify out thoughts.

In the process of various tasks, it turns out that my process often involves two things:

1) Making a powerpoint presentation. I've had to make a lot of these for school. Also, I've had to sit through a lot of bad presentations. If you can't make your powerpoint clear, you have problems with your model and your paper will never be clear. (Jane Miller is fantastic for explaining how to have good ones.) But at some point I realized making a powerpoint (even a few slides, even one slide) was such a good way at distilling down what you wanted to say succinctly, that it was great simply to clarify things in your own head.

2) Drawing a picture. I'm a visual person, and so I figure things out better when I see them. When in doubt, it's a good idea to draw out your model (which I also do in powerpoint).

So yeah. Also- and Doug was the one that said this to me- start writing things down early. It doesn't have to be final text (it shouldn't be)- just start putting it down as you find it or think it. Combing through later may be frustrating, but much less scary than a blank page!

On a side note: I really need to go to the coffee shop tomorrow. I can work from home- I definitely can- just not as well... Being at a coffee shop is a pleasant change of scenery (as opposed to being on campus- which is an unpleasant change). But being at a coffee shop keeps me focused, because I am there specifically to do a certain task. Plus, when I hit a slump, there's always a LATTE to keep me going.

2008-01-07T12:06:00.000-05:00

The Spring Semester officially starts Jan 16- that's just a week and two days.
I need to be able to meet with the profs on my committee then to reconnect and plan a dissertation defense.
Oi!

Today I couldn't think straight to think about how I want to arrange my conceptual themes within the paper- so I spent time again on data & coding.

Worked on the coding for the marriage variable by year. Also found an error in my previous coding for work limitation, so that's good.

2008-01-02T22:30:00.001-05:00

“Where an underlying pathophysiologic basis for a putative disease remains problematic- as in alcoholism for example- we have another sort of framemaking, but one that nevertheless reflects in its style the plausibility and prestige of an unambiguously somatic, mechanism-oriented model of disease. This reductionist tendency has been logically and historically tied to another characteristic of our thinking about disease- and that is its specificity. In our culture, its existence as specific entity is a fundamental aspect of the intellectal and moral legitimacy of disease. If it is not specific, it is not a disease and a sufferer not entitled to the sympathy- and in recent decades often the reimbursement- connected with an agreed-upon diagnosis.”

Rosenberg CE. 1989. Disease in History: Frames and Framers. The Milbank Quarterly 67:1-15

Dear Prof Rosenberg,
I think you're awesome.
Sincerely,
Me

2007-12-31T15:04:00.000-05:00

So my outcomes of interest for work disability are marital success, depression, and.... it was uptake of disability insurance (SSI/SSDI). But, as I've said before, I'm not into this outcome. My only angle into it is if I'm going to demonstrate something to illustrate how inadequate and rubbish SSI is. (I'm a bit of a rabble rouser, for those who haven't noticed).

Also, rather importantly, the question on the NLSY for disability uptake is rather aspecific. It lumps together whether the benefits were received by respondent or their spouse, and whether the benefits were SSI or veterans benefits. Really, actually, inadequate.

What I have been chewing at and would rather look at is DEBT. Jason tells me that a third of bankruptcies are due to health problems, and I'd really like to know where that statistic came from.

I've only found to bits of literature on this topic:

1) Some Brits (i.e. Anglos who are just that much more progressive than us) have talked about debt and disability in a handful of rather marginal publications, and

2) The group of people I've actually heard of including James Smith (Healthy Bodies and Thick Wallets) and Sir Marmot (another Brit) who talk about the wealth->health association and discuss it's bi-directionality. Basically, I haven't seen anyone (on this continent...) who's addressed disability->debt specifically.

3) Also cool people like Palloni like to talk about how childhood health impacts later social class and all that.

So I think the topic is rather open and good to do, but where did Jason get that statistic? I want to know what I'm missing. Hmmm. But I have the debt stats for most years in the NLSY and a 2004 question on ever declaring bankruptcy, so the data is there...

So what would my "research question" be? How significant is work disability in contributing to debt and bankruptcy... That sounds rubbish.... I need to work on this eh. But it's all good. I'm not going to go doubting myself now. No sir.

Happy New Year :)

2007-12-28T20:27:00.000-05:00

Seeing the files downloaded on desktop today, I realize I actually MISSED getting my hands dirty in data. I heart Stata. I really really do! :)

2007-12-28T18:07:00.001-05:00

So I went to the coffee shop again today. Saw Carla which was lovely. Rather than playing the usual fare of the Smiths, they played some awful dissonant modern rubbish that made my head feel like it would explode. Fortunately I brought earplugs :)

Today I worked more on the least certain research outcome: financial wellbeing. Specifically debt. My original descriptive analyses using the NLSY for debt were completely blah and uninteresting. But that was just peeking at the 2004 wave. So I'm looking now at the other years of debt: 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 92, 93, 94, 96, 98, 2000 to see if they are a bit richer than the final baseline wave.

Also, it occurs to me that I'm not terribly intimidated by the dissertation anymore. It may be because I have much scarier things to be worried about than school. Or it may be that the mystique has been taken out of this work. I know now that the wizard is just a (rather smart) man behind a curtain, so to speak.

I've been here long enough to know that it's no special heavenly qualities that make for good work, but just a bit of know-how and time. And I've been exposed to it long enough to feel like I have enough of that know-how not to be too scared by the process. But I think it's mostly the first explanation. Seriously, I have much more stressful things in my life than some little old dissertation...

2007-12-20T17:33:00.001-05:00

Today I got to a coffee shop to clear my head and get some work done.

I re-wrote the introduction to my third topic, on work disability and marital success.

Since the basic cross-sectional relationship between health and marital success represents a more complex interplay of causal relationships, I'm trying to clarify this (for myself).

What am I missing?

2007-12-16T12:47:00.000-05:00

This isn't something that tidily resolves itself. We have a working diagnosis and food is again edible, but health has not been restored. Not yet.
Sorry.

*update: The working diagnosis was just discarded. I know what tree to sniff under now, but the AMA isn't with me. I have lost all reason to treat doctors with any respect, when they consistently 1) fail me 2) are oblivious to how profoundly they have failed and 3) continue to be condescending. I refuse to respect anybody that cannot show me the appropriate human respect.

2007-11-28T13:47:00.001-05:00

We're trying to get back on our feet. I have not run for the hills. I am still here. And you will all get your dissertation!!!!!
Thank you for your patience :)

2007-11-10T17:08:00.001-05:00

Things are on hold while I deal with a family health crisis.

2007-10-27T21:07:00.000-04:00

For all the hours that I'm not able to work properly on this dissertation... perhaps if I describe those "lost" hours as intensive ethnographic research on the topic... then it is not actually so bad. Really my whole awful life is good insight into the paper, and you couldn't pay someone enough to make them suffer through what we've got... So it's really okay that my dissertation is moving so slow right...? :S

Right now I'm trying to fill out my marriage section- reviewing the literature and incorporating it into my draft. I need a proper handle on the marriage <-> health relationship in it's tricky bi-directionality and all.

I know I'm behind. I think about it all the time. I dream about it. I swear I am doing my best. I appreciate all considerations. I will make this dissertation worth the wait. Please hold on. Please be patient.

2007-10-24T12:46:00.000-04:00

"In all analyses, higher weekly time commitment to informal care for a spouse or parent was associated with increased risk of depressive symptoms. This relationship persisted whether women were not employed outside the home, were employed full-time, or were employed part-time. Higher weekly time commitment to informal care provision was associated with increased risk of depressive symptoms whether women were socially integrated or socially isolated. However, both informal care provision and social ties were potent independent correlates of depressive symptoms. Therefore, women who reported high spousal care time commitment and few social ties experienced a dramatic elevation in depressive symptoms, compared to women with no spousal care responsibilities and many social ties..."

Cannuscio CC, Colditz GA, Rimm EB, Berkman LF, Jones CP, Kawachi I. 2004. Employment status, social ties, and caregivers' mental health. Social Science & Medicine 58:1247-56

2007-10-23T03:11:00.000-04:00

I rely far too heavily on spell check. Not only did I have better handwriting in the forth grade, I think I was also a better speller! :P

Add that to the many ways my computer is making me stupider by the day...

2007-10-22T20:28:00.000-04:00

I'm trying very hard to get back my momentum. I wasn't able to sit down and write today, so I opted instead for reading of literature and the small opportunities it provides to add to text in bits as salient points are found in the literature.

Anyhow, I'm reading an article on "Invisible Disability" by N. Ann Davis from the journal Ethics. I am unfamiliar with the field of Ethics generally, but I've discovered one thing about it. While in my field I have to justify social concern based on economic costs, or other tangible negative outcomes, apparently ethicists can also point out over and over that particular stances are just plain IMMORAL. They get to bring morality to the table, while I have to act disinterested. Lucky!

Oh I might need to watch out for this prof though, as apparently she is "a threat to the American public" according to one crazy and rather frightening website. They're cracking down on thems with the freaky-deaky Marxist-Leninist leanings. They actually say that! Yeah I'm more than a little bit scared, but not of her. Girl needs to watch her back now. Hope I never make it onto their crazy "enemy list".

2007-10-18T20:10:00.000-04:00

"We know where the real life documentarians are..."
"Intro"- BlackStar

2007-10-18T19:32:00.001-04:00

Okay, things are back under control and I'm ready to climb back on this horse.

Tomorrow morning I meet with Monica at the coffee shop to discuss our dissertation progress, strategies, woes, concerns, or just how good the brownies there are. I had one last week and it was chocalicious.

In other news, I have a new diagnosis of (mild?) ADD, and a brand new bottle of Dextroamphetamine to try! Can't wait to test-drive it. Could it be that I was pushing uphill even more than I realized? I will so let you know.

And to repeat the public service announcement I so often give, CAPS is awesome and it is there for us! I know it's scary the first time to go to somebody for mental health- like you must be crazy. Or even just the fear of discussing things you're used to just being stressed out over and tucking away. Trust me, after the first time, it's all gravy!

2007-10-11T18:18:00.000-04:00

I'm so overwhelmed right now I'm not even making it to my CAPS appointments. This is serious. I'm calling time out, or else you're gonna read about me in the back pages (those are the bad ones).

I'm going to take some time to recover and to catch up with the bills, the laundry, eating, and my sanity. I've been wearing the same dirty clothes for the past three days... :(

And for anyone that's new to the blog and confused, I don't have a chemical imbalance, just a major life imbalance.

2007-10-10T16:02:00.000-04:00

Forced myself to send J my draft last week, and heard back from him that it was a good start, and an array of useful feedback on how to improve it.

Also, yesterday I met with D to let him know how things were coming along. I told him I'd send him a copy of my draft that day (which reminds me I didn't do that yet- sorry D!!!). I'll do that now.

The next step, besides finishing my proposal along the lines discussed/discussing with my 3 committee members, I also need to set a date for the proposal defense. It would be awfully nice if I propose by the end of October, and I am hoping that comes together without too much pain.

D described what his experiences on dissertation proposals have been. He suggests I reserve the soc room downstairs so that I can use powerpoint, since I prefer to have a powerpoint presentation, however small, to help organize what I'm trying to present. He says don't expect to talk for more than 5 minutes though before the presentation dissolves into discussion and whatnot.

So that' s the update.

2007-10-03T11:57:00.001-04:00

I am trying to get my daubed beast together to the point that it's readable. You know the point in the Do-it-yourself "Trading Spaces" shows where (and this always happens), there's only like half a day left until they have to show their work, and they can point out, what they say, is at least three critical flaws. But then every time the house is just fine when the owners come home?

That's how I feel.

I have, at this point in time a double-spaced document of 36 pages, including bibliography. However, because I wrote the bulk of this by dabbing bits, it takes a lot of iterations combing through to rearrange the pieces until they make the beautiful puzzle picture that is my dissertation.

To assist my process in jumping around the document so much, I have embedded all sorts of hyperlinks, and I'm still enjoying that. (God my life's boring).

Also, there is good news, which is that I am in love with my dissertation. It's true. We're a month into the metaphorical gestation of my dissertation, and I'm already feeling it.

The question that plagues me now is why do I feel like I'm slowing down just as I reach the end of this task. Do I wish to drag my feet because I hate hate hate giving up the baby for inspection by the pediatrics doctors. Doctors can be so rough with new life. That's why I've formed my crack team of specialists. If I could draw (well or quickly), I would totally draw anime style pics of our invincible dissertation team. But I can't, which is for the best because I need to get back to work. (You know that thing I said about slowing down as I reach the end?)

But it's coming together. I've arranged the pieces enough times that a nice big picture is coming out I think!

*fingers crossed*

2007-10-01T16:26:00.000-04:00

Let's say there are people payed to calculate. They are told what piece of information is desired (e.g. the percent of the population who wear glasses), and they go out and extract the necessary data to produce that answer.

Then let's say there are people that write up that information when there's a lot of it. Such as in, say, just off the top of my head, in a dissertation, or else an article or whatever... Should those people merely be hired to report the information like very clever automatons?

Or say, god forbid, there is a spirit to the thing. What if behind those numbers there were an infinite number of moments in lives of real people (JUST as real as academics), and that those numbers were alive. What if those numbers told a story as real as the afternoon sun. A story about people, patterned into numbers, that inhabited this exact world that you happen to be sitting in right now.

What if just reporting the numbers was meaningless?

2007-09-30T14:23:00.000-04:00

In the 4th grade, my teacher praised me on my lovely handwriting. It seems that my penmanship peaked at that very moment, and has been steadily declining for the past 20 years.

I write like a monkey.
Even I can no longer read my own handwriting.
It's a real good thing I'm a fast typer.

2007-09-30T13:32:00.000-04:00

So very soon- so very soon- I'm going to give a few people my proposal draft.

I didn't really know how to go about writing a "dissertation proposal" at all, or anything similarly big and vague. And at first my document was just an outline on a single page and that's so discouraging. So my strategy varied, but mainly involved using the chunks of time I had to work, to put pieces in as I came across them, really quite hither-thither. And this meant frequent cleaning and combing to make those pieces make sense and a good more to come still. But I just kept writing bits down in pieces, either a point I wanted to make, or else a piece of information of key information and a cite. Then I kept rearranging them till they made sense. And then, reading through to spot the more banal pieces of information that were neglected, I was able to find old drafts of unpublished (well, everything I have is unpublished) work that built me up to this topic anyway. So then I could "borrow" pieces of my old text to add to the new, then comb the piece again.

The bit of advice below about Becker and revising- I'm really into that. And this way, if I don't know how to say something, I just write down whatever way it happens to come out and go back later when it's clearer and fix it.

For fun, when I don't know a word, I started using the word "smurf". It's completely versatile, and it makes me smile.

So my daubed beast is starting to look like something that'll be like 30 pages of dissertation proposal. I suspect my fuller writing of the paper will be a bit more systematic, but there's a real good chance that I'm just kidding myself on that. But as long as it gets done, do I care? No, I do not.

2007-09-28T20:51:00.000-04:00

Don't worry, these wheels are yet turning- if more slowly than desired. I hope to issue a draft of something that I hesitate to call a proposal (but that people around me are) to a select few shortly. See my knees shaking?! But still, this baby wants to be born!

2007-09-24T21:59:00.000-04:00

Okay, so things are calming down. Had some rough weeks, and now I am back. I had to scoot back meetings based on the crying rule. (If the probability of me crying uncontainably in the prof's office is 40% or greater, I don't go in.)

So the story picks up here where I’m at right now. I'm working now to get back my momentum, plus a new vigour perhaps.

One challenge is that we are no longer strictly diurnal these days, as sleep is taken at irregular intervals as needed and able for the period at hand. The good thing is that this no longer bothers me. The bad thing is this no longer bothers me. How am I going to be at colloquims or seeing profs if I am only getting to sleep, as others are waking? So we’ll see how that works out for me :P

Had a meeting with J at the end of last week. These are the notes:

Meeting was supportive (thank you)
In response to recent loss of time and energy, J. has redirected my strategy thusly:

Restrict task at present to a sliver- the easiest slice. (That sound's like cake… okay that works for me). So of those three topics I am doing, write only on a single topic to begin. And I have done the most lit and whatnot over these years on Depression, so that is the slice.

For the immediate time period, me & J. will dialogue electronically instead of in real-life, so that ongoing communication will be more feasible. Also, he will be generally expecting to hear from me just as soon as I am able to show him something.

Also, I had a good meeting with D prior to that to discuss how my topics were coming along and what he had to say about it.

When I apologized for not seeing him in too long, and confessing that I was dragging my feet because I kept feeling like I had nothing new to say- he responded that actually sometimes it's best to come in when that's the case. I hadn't thought of it that way before.
He suggested the idea that I could use split samples within a single dataset to make an analysis stronger. I think the idea is that if a dataset sample is cut in half (randomly I presume), you can first do some analysis to determine there is a relationship between two things within just the first half of the split sample. Then you can test for this relationship in the second half to see if it holds in this too. The idea is that with a big enough sample and whatnot, you'll get things that are significant just by chance. So you're making findings more robust that way...
Also when I told him about my literary wanderings, he suggested that I would enjoy Studs Terkel. Of course, I can't let myself get too distracted by this stuff!
We planned to meet as needed for now.

2007-09-24T14:57:00.001-04:00

You know, back in the old days, if I needed caffeine I would go find a way to get a cup of coffee. Then I would drink that coffee, and about 10 minutes later, I'd be feeling perked up. Five minutes later I would have to run pee. Back in the old days!

Now I just take this handy candy! Think of it like Astronaut ice cream, but instead it's lazy grad student coffee.

They're right in CVS in the supplement aisle!

Caveats: One night I was ate at least half a dozen, and at a single point I caught myself eating it like candy. I later experienced certain internal discomfort and distension, but that was probably random or else due more to the neglect regarding food. Anywho, since then I eat them in less enthusiastic quantity, and I LOVE em!!

Remember back when your early-morning three-hour-block class, the WHOLE class had to count down the minutes to break when they could run to ABP for coffee? Sometimes fascinating material just isn't enough. Remember the occasional methods or stats class when your eyes just would not stay open? And the more you tried, the heavier they got? Man if I had these then, I would have been like Popeye! Awesome!

2007-09-24T06:58:00.000-04:00

Finally gearing back up... Yay.

2007-09-15T16:21:00.001-04:00

Will return to normally scheduled programming after life stops trying to destroy me. :S

2007-09-11T22:57:00.000-04:00

I tried to give FFF my blog addy today in the atrium, but he dodged me more nimbly than Muhammed Ali.
However, I finally squeezed a single piece of dissertation advice out of him.

"Everyday, sit down at the same set time and write 3 pages. Don't edit. Just write and write until you get three pages. Then go have a glass of wine. (I made that part up). After you've written it all out, then you start the edits..."

At the time I stood there nodding, but thinking that clearly this is a method more appropriate to a sociologist than a nuts-and-bolts demographer as I'm expected to be. But come this evening, I think he's right, only on a smaller scale. More time to data, less time to inking out a monograph.

As a postscript to this, I have to add that over the years hearing discussion of "personal method" among the professors- there is a wide variety of methods. Some people can only work after 11PM, and some people can't think clear after11AM, and so that's how they work. It's all relative in this crazy world of academia.

Some people carefully outline their attack before beginning to attempt real text. And some people just have at it. They actually start at the beginning, work thru the middle, and stop at the end.

So, although there are a lot of really great tips out there, I also have to remember that there is no one right way. Somethings work for others that won't work for me & vice versa... I guess you come to personalize your own daily method and establish momentum through some routine...

Wow, a nine-to five and somebody telling me how to wipe my own, um, hands sounds nice right now- but that's crazy talk. I am studying exactly what I want to study, in my own way more or less, for the next 9 months and that's what you call a lucky thing.

2007-09-11T22:50:00.000-04:00

Do I get to write in the first person in this proposal? Like, "for this paper, I will attempt to decompose trends in cottage cheese eating, and I am particularly interested in discovering whether these changes are due to increased adherence to an Adkin's diet, or whether it's... well you get the idea (it only gets worse from here...)

2007-09-11T13:39:00.001-04:00

Perhaps more worrisome than the visible increases in work disability, are the increasing health problems among children- who are going to grow up to be some health impaired adults real soon.

This was in the news today.

More Kids Developing High Blood Pressure

Although the increases so far have been small -- just 2.3 percentage points for early hypertension and 1 point for full-blown hypertension -- they translate into hundreds of thousands more children developing what often becomes a chronic, lifelong condition. Considered primarily an affliction of the middle-aged and elderly, high blood pressure is a leading cause of a host of health problems, including heart attack and stroke -- the nation's top killers.

"This is a major public health problem," said Rebecca Din-Dzietham of the Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, who led the study, which will be published in the Sept. 25 issue of the American Heart Association Journal Circulation. "Unless this upward trend in high blood pressure is reversed, we could be facing an explosion of new cardiovascular disease cases in young adults and adults."

With an adult form of diabetes already being diagnosed more frequently in children and more young people developing high cholesterol, the new finding is another indication that the obesity epidemic is spawning a generation at heightened risk for illnesses that struck their parents and grandparents only later in life, experts said.

"This is very worrisome," said Elizabeth G. Nabel, director of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. "Typically in the past we didn't begin to see high blood pressure until someone was in their 30s or 40s. This is another piece of evidence suggesting that the obesity epidemic will likely turn into a heart disease epidemic."

2007-09-10T19:29:00.001-04:00

It's been a rough week. A rough week. I can do this. I will do this. We'll be alright. This is going to happen.

2007-09-05T14:39:00.000-04:00

The term disability, in common use, can suggest a variety of phenomena. Disability can connote the iconic man-in-wheelchair, with clear mobility impairment through loss of limb or locomotion. For others it may conjure images of children with cognitive or emotional maldevelopment, or individuals requiring psychiatric care. There are the aged men and women grown weak with passing years. And yet another face of disability is that of the laborer with broken back, darkened lung, or similar physical deterioration from years of manual work. Multiple phenomena fall under the umbrella of disability.

In one of those paradoxes that seem to plague human observation, the more we have talked about disability, the less precise the term has become. A variety of governmental institutions, altruisitc organizations, or the popular press, have each contributed to the dialogue, making clarity a concern. Indeed, given the amount that is at stake, it is surprising how little clarity there is on this topic.

2007-09-01T21:17:00.000-04:00

Is it okay to quietly quote Walt Whitman in the middle of your oh-so-empirical demography dissertation?

Nobody called me on it when I slid TS Eliot into my second year paper. Although, there is some question over whether anybody actually read it... I'm just saying.... I mean, did you?? See!

Anyway, any complaints? Fine it's done.

Disability, as a concept, is large and contains multitudes.

It's the little things that are going to get me through this.

2007-08-29T22:23:00.000-04:00

So did you know that if you're working on a longish draft, and you want an easy way to skip to parts in the word document, you can just

1) mark the part of text you want to skip to as a bookmark (highlight text; insert bookmark; give name to bookmark) and

2) embed a hyperlink to that bookmark wherever you want that "shortcut" in the document (highlight link text; insert hyperlink; then choose the desired bookmark in that document).

So now on the first page of my draft, I have a handy "contents" list, with links where I can jump right to introduction, data, etc. Woo hoo, technology is neat.

2007-08-29T21:43:00.000-04:00

I was feeling really discouraged this morning- the week wasn't coming along like I thought it should. And I started to feel unsure about how to do this. I've written the data sections for a paper before, but not for a proposal of 3 papers. How much do I need to say? I emailed E. and she promised to show me her proposal when she was back, but I wanted to get this data section etched out by then.

Also, I felt like I wasn't producing enough text, and was starting to feel crappy about that. Hubs was sweet about it though, which helped me feel a little better.

But at some point a lightbulb went on. First of all, this is a piece I am writing- a single piece. I needed to store it that way. I put all of my separate word files together into one. And second, this single piece is something that will need to be combed DAILY. It had to be a companion I could live with. I needed to make it my friend.

Just the other day a wise man told me that in order not to break expensive fragile things (as I so often do), that I should name them. He said that as silly as it sounded, it would work. I tried it, and indeed it seems that an actual name is irrelevant- it's the act of treating it as a person. For if I orient toward an object as a person, I bang it around a little less.

Similarly, I believe I must orient toward this dissertation as a beloved friend. Laugh you may. And if J. ever bothers to read this, I'm SURE he will. But I can stand a laugh. All I need is to survive.

And I'm back on track. I'm back on track baby.

2007-08-28T20:10:00.000-04:00

By this Friday the 31st to have the basic data sections written for each of three proposals.

J points out that in addition to the three empirical papers required to constitute "the dissertation", I can (and should) also have a "chapter" to set up my conceptual foundation. I like that because 1) "chapter" makes it sound proper like a book and 2) it will allow me room to play with the fun mushy soc stuff that is just begging to be explored.

I've been working through lit the past few days to build my conceptual framework. I thought this was a good thing to do at this point, but also I just didn't want to look at dataset stuff.

But now it's time to grind out some detail work so I don't fall behind. So today and the rest of the week, that's what I think I should be doing...

2007-08-27T23:21:00.000-04:00

"I'll keel over in one o' these spells, Larry," he said. "I'm gettin' purty old to be knocked around from pillar t' post and nobody t' take care o' me. A man needs a woman t' watch out fer 'im. I gotta sew buttons, patch my clothes. I tell you it ain't no picnic fer a man o' my age."

"My aunt's husband said a working man should never get married," I countered. "He got shot and left three kids for my aunt to support. He said that as long as a man was single he didn't have to take any slack off anybody; he could pull up and leave."
"Well, I don't know," Grady returned miserably, rubbing his hairy belly. "They's two ways o' lookin' at it, I guess. The best thing is not t' be a workin' man at all. You get you a white collar job. You use big words like you had an education."
"That's what I'm going to do," I answered compacently. "I'm studying every night so I won't have to be a steel worker all my life."

2007-08-24T01:23:00.000-04:00

In order to keep the Social in the Social Science, I'm supplementing my literature intake with some relevant fiction. Consider it like secondary ethnography to inform my research. Or just call it fun.
Current read is Jack Conroy's "The Disinherited". I got it used thru Amazon so it's like 40 years old and the pages are yellowing. Does anyone else just loooove the smell of old books? I never thought that was weird but I've just been informed it might be.

2007-08-23T18:18:00.000-04:00

I definitely think that the all the journal and literature search websites have gotten much more compatible with Endnote. I rarely have a problem exporting citations these days, and that didn't use to be the case. Although for some reason pubmed is still a pain.

Also, I'm getting this awful anxiety that this huge reliance I'm developing on software and the internet is going to bite me in the butt. If I had to try to write a lit review w/out bibliographic software to help me sort through everything, it would be near impossible. I'm not sure how people used to do it...

2007-08-23T15:30:00.002-04:00

I just keep looking at this stuff. Let's see I really need to work on the lit review/conceptual stuff, but then maybe I should be scouring thru the datasets. I know- I'll walk the dog instead! I might be better at this if there were hellish imps whipping me forward and monitoring any ADD tendencies.
Sometimes I think that spending a year working on a project that you have chosen and are interested in is like the most lucky thing that could happen to you.
But sitting in a room, just me and a laptop, trying rock by rock to build something and I'm not even sure what sometimes... I don't know that humans were designed to do this.
At least it finally stopped raining outside.

2007-08-21T22:11:00.001-04:00

So a real simple conceptual ordering would be the first diagram below. But this is unsatisfying, and I'm going to do this longitudinally anyway. So the second diagram is closer...

2007-08-21T20:30:00.000-04:00

2007-08-21T02:30:00.001-04:00

3 topics...

Does work disability among males reduce the likelihood of being married in late adulthood (net of standard covariates)?

does background SES moderate this relationship?
Is this relationship driven more by decreased odds of marriage or increased odds of divorce?

Does work disability among males predict depression in later life (also, with controls)?

Does background SES moderate this relationship?
What are the probable mechanisms of SES here? (stem from Stanton 2007, Cutler 2006)

What factors predict uptake of disability insurance given a reported work limitation... Key factors: questions on work commitment, obligations (spouse & children), ...

I always wanted a rock tumbler when I was a kid. But I think the rock tumbler would have been really noisy don't you think? And take a while probably...

2007-08-20T19:28:00.000-04:00

Work disability in the

has not only endured, but has grown over the past century (documented as far back as the years following WWII).

This rising trend is problematic to two sets of people 1) the individuals and families to which this is occurring, and 2) the governmental organizations called upon to financially subsidize the affected group.

A good sociologist would attend to who is framing the discussion of work disability at all times.

2007-08-20T14:20:00.000-04:00

This month has been rather nuts-o. The In-Laws visited, we tried (and failed) to breed our dog, and a variety of stressors were managed... Fortunately August is the month of vacationing- in Academia and also, by no small coincidence, in France. So it's rather good timing.

I put this cartoon in because it was the only thing worthwhile netted by google images, and the world loves pictures. Don't take this to mean I've been sitting under a tree with a tiger or anything. That would be just silly.
Back to it then.

2007-08-15T20:55:00.001-04:00

Google Docs & Spreadsheets is super neat-o and oh so useful.
You can import an Excel doc just like that!

2007-08-08T17:59:00.000-04:00

I've noticed one difference in method here (among academiks) is the degree of digital storage and software use.

I'm more apt these days to "jot down a note" in excel or notepad than on actual paper. That's the strange world I've adopted, rather reminiscent of speculation over cyborg evolution, but in a truly unexciting way. So, all of my "research" is on the computer. And rather than walk through a library, or even to a printer, I just sit still and download pdfs and citations, then read and make comments (highlighting AND commenting directly on the pdf), and store it all away tidily, in my handy dandy little laptop. C'est bizarre. No paper at all.

I took this for granted until I saw the other day that one prof kept her desk piled tall with papers, as part of the process of sorting the information. It's just so tidy without all that. The downside, perhaps, is that my legs are surely wasting away from disuse, and my eyes are not doing fabulous. Oh and my posture.

2007-08-08T12:48:00.002-04:00

Pearlin was a sociologist, who sprang somehow out of Oklahoma through Columbia, and ended up in Maryland. His cv is hung with lots of laurels & he seemed to do quite well with National grants.

He looks quite nice really- Rather sweet. I would totally hold the door for him, or make spirited chit-chat with him about meaningless pleasantries in an elevator.

As far as it concerns my needs here, this was his pieces of the puzzle.

The Structure of Coping (1978):

“Coping” = “behavior that protects people from being psychologically harmed by problematic social experience, a behavior that importantly mediates the impact that societies have on their members.”

eliminating or modifying condintions giving rise to problems
by perceptually controlling the meaning of experience in a manner that neutralizes its problematic character
by keeping the emotional consequences of problems within managable bounds

These (personal) coping interventions are most effective in the realm of marriage & child-rearing (close relationships) and least effective when dealing with occupation (not close relationships…)

Effective coping modes are unequally distributed in society in favor of male, educated, & affluent.

The Stress Process (1981)

A study: longitudinal data, used lots of path analysis (as prior generations of sociologists often did- was that driven more by computing limitations, or rather a passion for the method? (Anyone?))

Looks like this guy was about bringing process back into the model. Bringing the complexity and motion back into the sterile and static concepts. (those billiard balls we like to play with)

The key thing here seems to be his model, so I drew it out here to the left.

This sounds an awful lot like exactly sort of what I'm doing.

The Sociological Study of Stress (1989)

Not so pithy, this one.

Structure and Meaning in Medical Sociology (1992)

This one’s an addresses. Here’s my distillation of his 10 page essay (yes I thought that was a good idea too):

“Contemporary sociology marches to many different drumbeats.” (i.e. I’m old and I’ve seen it diversify from that original core). “The point I wish to underscore is that a broad mix of interests and involvements converge in medical sociology”.

Let me squeeze this into a ball and bring this moment to its crisis. (This man could use a little powerpoint, know what I mean. Some of us are kind of ADD here)

“The point of all this is to emphasize the potential for a synergistic exchange between structuralists who do surveys and meaning-oriented workers who do qualitative work.” Fine.

Financial Strains and Health Across the Life Course (2006)

This last one came out a year ago, and he’s second author. Since he’s an old cowboy, I’m guessing he didn’t do the ropework on this one, which is fine. The paper looks worthwhile, but my copy of adobe right now is sticking out it’s tongue at me when I try to download the pdf to read… But the abstract says this:

“The analysis is based on data from 1,167 adults 65 years and older collected as part of the "Aging, Stress and Health Study." Relying on retrospective data about hardship experienced over the life course, we find that long-term financial hardship is reflected in a range of health outcomes at late life, even after controlling for the effects of current financial circumstances. Moreover, the sheer persistence of hardship matters more than its episodic occurrence or timing, so that the health effects of early hardship may be obviated if followed by no further hardship.” (Good news, let’s just find out how to get “no further hardship”!) Guess I’ve heard it before but it’s worth repeating.

So there it is. His stress model is super neat-o in that it's not completely unlike reality, so I'll be using that there in the ol lit review to set up my precedents and models and whatnot. Not a waste of time. Thanks Pearlin! :D

2007-08-07T12:24:00.001-04:00

I'm looking at the ACL and I'm liking it.

It focuses especially on differences between Black and White Americans (in middle and late life). This would be taking the advice of D by giving good attention both to blacks and too a slightly older pop. It would be interesting to be able to compare patterns at different ages, even if just in passing… And it has some sweet questions!

2007-08-04T09:29:00.000-04:00

Incidentally, while I have not posted in the last couple of days, apparently I have been hard at work in my dreams. I'm prone to talking and moving about in my sleep. Last week it turns out I was dream-eating, replete with hand to mouth gestures and (I assume) chewing motions.
But last night, I was exhorting my husband to save the post for my dissertation. Turns out I was dissertation-blogging in my sleep. I am such a hard worker! ;)

2007-08-01T18:36:00.000-04:00

Met with Big-J to pitch my ideas. Showed him the table of ingredients, sat on the floor and waited. Then, he went thru them one by one and we talked it out. We broadened the scope here, narrowed it a bit there, and threw a whole piece out altogether (despite my great sales pitch of “come on, wouldn’t that be cool?!”). And voila, I’m on track. So now I’m gonna hammer it out some more and then, you know, do it.

I reminded him to read my blog and he eagerly bookmarked it. He seemed pretty excited about it. (that's sarcastic) (Hey J, you could make it you homepage! Ha! )

Oh also I need to remember to check out Schooler and dig up the Pearlin. And get on the ACL, and maybe the GSS. And by way of clarification, the ACL I’m refering to is the American’s Changing Lives Survey and not the anterior cruciate ligament.

2007-08-01T12:59:00.001-04:00

Time to put my figurative pencil down. What did I come up with to pitch to Big-J?
Well I'm not going to write it here now, because I have to go clean up and get ready to go in to campus. But I have filled in every single box of my "table of ingredients", although some answers are rather aspecific (sample size = giganticus). But I'm kind of digging what I got. Now let's see what J thinks, shall we.... to be continued!

2007-07-31T17:21:00.000-04:00

Today had a touching-base chat with J (the new chair). I am pleased to report that she likes my topic, and will probably have good input to give me as she's all about labor economics.
Tomorrow meet with J (committee person).... Will I know what I'm doing by then- "the ingredients" for my diss? Maybe... :)

2007-07-30T15:42:00.001-04:00

Before I meet with J on Wednesday (2 days from now), I need to get down all the key ingredients for my delicious dissertation cake (hmm, cake...). I will know because I will be able to fill the following table:

(It looks like a table in excel, but not so much here)

2007-07-30T14:53:00.001-04:00

Economic disadvantage functions cumulatively to erode health...

Epidemiologic evidence for the relation between socioeconomic status and depression, obesity, and diabetes

Susan A. Everson, Siobhan C. Maty, John W. Lynch and George A. Kaplan
Department of Epidemiology and the Center for Social Epidemiology and Population Health, University of Michigan School of Public Health, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

Abstract

Many of the leading causes of death and disability in the United States and other countries are associated with socioeconomic position. The least well-off suffer a disproportionate share of the burden of disease, including depression, obesity, and diabetes. Research suggests that the adverse effects of economic hardship on both mental and physical health and functioning are evident at young ages and persist across the lifecourse. Moreover, these associations are seen across cultures. Data from four large epidemiologic studies on the role of psychological characteristics, social factors, and behaviors in health and disease risk are presented that highlight the striking associations between socioeconomic factors and chronic diseases. Data from these studies demonstrate that the effects of economic disadvantage are cumulative, with the greatest risk of poor mental and physical health seen among those who experienced sustained hardship over time.

2007-07-30T12:19:00.000-04:00

The trend of rising work disability in conjunction with a national economy that is already stretched and unable to support its rapidly aging population is a frightening prospect. But where should we look for answers to such a problem? A short term solution is to contract benefits, but while this would spare the national economy in the short term, it fails to address the problems of health and subsistance existing within the population. Particularly with signs of increasing disability among children and young adults, this problem will continue to grow as these cohorts move into the work force.
The government and other research institutions have devoted certain efforts to measure the burden of work disability within the population. Part of the debate amongst these researchers is how to obtain a pure measure of work disability. Since work disability is an inability to perform required tasks, it is composed not only of some health impairment, but also the environment and tasks which one is confronted with. Thus job demands are a key ingredient, and these of course vary across across time and social strata. However, this key contextualization is generally treated as a nonissue after including a basic treatment of income, sex, and education without great detail.
Instead, what is perhaps given more attention is the reliability of reporting. The concern is that individuals may be more likely to report a health issue as something that conflicts with employment if they are apt to receive a payoff for doing so (classic microeconomic thinking). Thus there is concern that the expanded welfare of the 80's onward increased reports of work disability independent of actual changes in health. A less suspicious version of this concern is that with an increased awareness of work disability as a condition, or an increased social acceptance of such a state, these things would increase the odds of self-identifying with such an undesirable social category. Similarly, it would be possible that the increase in work disability with age was in part composed of an increased willingness to admit health limitations once one approached a respectable retirement age.

2007-07-25T15:48:00.000-04:00

2007-07-25T15:23:00.001-04:00

Ooh ooh ooh, it would be fun to take my NLSY cohort and examine both reporting of work disability and outcomes following reporting with respect to gender expectations. I think we totally got questions in there on something about that. I'll go check....

See yeah here: "Family Attitudes"

WOMAN'S PLACE IS IN THE HOME?
WIFE WITH FAMILY HAS NO TIME FOR OTHER EMPLOYMENT?
WORKING WIFE FEELS MORE USEFUL?
EMPLOYMENT OF WIVES LEADS TO JUVENILE DELINQUENCY?
INFLATION NECESSITATES EMPLOYMENT OF BOTH PARENTS?
TRADITIONAL HUSBAND/WIFE ROLES BEST?
MEN SHOULD SHARE HOUSEWORK?
WOMEN ARE HAPPIER IN TRADITIONAL ROLES?

It's all about women, but that doesn't matter so much. I'm betting 10 to 1 that men who are conservative on the above questions are going to be more reluctant to report work disability, and will likely suffer a greater psychological toll when they do. Wouldn't that be interesting to test? Total sociology though right??

Would this link up with a reduced likelihood of welfare uptake? Bet it would...maybe.

2007-07-25T12:59:00.000-04:00

So one of the topics for a paper was examining predictors of SSI/SSDI uptake within my NLSY cohort. Because…. ?

Discussing government payouts (and particulary ones that are being currently scrutinized due to steeply growing costs to national purse), seems to lend instant IMPORTANCE to the paper. Why do I want to know such and such, well because it’s policy relevant, duh.

But the thing is, the real meat of the matter is elsewhere. It’s so downstream it’s like standing at the delta.

Here’s one take on the matter:

The government can not afford the rising costs of disability payouts (among other things). Disability rolls have risen, and duration of lifetime payments per each are increasing due to younger onset and more chronic & less lethal nature of conditions. This is a problem for sure.
One solution proposed for this has been to re-tighten criteria for disability payouts. Since leglislative changes in 1984 broaded the definition of disability to include a broader array of impairments, and changed the evidentiary rules of obtaining payouts in applicants favor, this could be re-tightened (Autor & Duggan 2006).
Yet in 1993, when CPS data estimated 10.4 million individuals with severe work disability in the US, SSDI & SSI payouts only extended to 6.7 million individuals (LaPlante et. al. 1996). Defenses can be made- surely some people are getting checks from elsewhere- but if payouts were not sufficient 15 years ago, and work-disability has been growing, this insufficiency is growing. Cutting back payments may spare the government expense, but that is only helpful for the government coffers and only in the short term to be sure.
So what do I think is a useful and relevant way to structure an inquiry around SSI/SSDI payments? I honestly just don’t know.

2007-07-24T22:28:00.001-04:00

2007-07-24T19:50:00.000-04:00

Two thoughts:

There really is NO social history of work disability. Unless it goes by another name (social history of work?). Too bad I'm not doing a degree in social history, but well IT STILL MATTERS DOESN'T IT? Does it? This category is just so SOCIALLY CONSTRUCTED! And neither am I doing a degree in sociology, but I'll assert that demography without a sociologically-sound conceptual foundation is not worth doing. And with the context of work disability churning and heaving so across this century, and social ideology changing daily it seems (such short memory we have- Ani was right, we are like goldfish!) ... If you build on mushy ground, you need a good foundation right! I'm just not satisfied with a historically grounded foundation in my lit search yet.
It strikes me again looking at this "history" of disability, that it's important in these papers to emphasize (or at least consciously include) work-disability due to cumulative, and possibly gradual, wear of chronic illness. Not just wheel chairs, blind/deafness, or traumatic injury (as profound and intense as those are). We need to talk about chronic illness, cause I'm just not satisfied with that either.

Mantra..."I am a demographer. Stick to the numbers. Be the numbers."
followed by the memory of asking the question, "what was a demographer again?", followed by the sound of T laughing, so as to avoid answering the question, and my growing concern. What are my criteria here?! I guess I need to make that appointment with Janice, new captain of the ship.

2007-07-24T18:58:00.000-04:00

Is the relationship b/w work disability and SES a smooth monotonic association á la Kitigawa & Hauser’s (1973) gradient (between SES & mortality)?

Has the gradient b/w work disability and SES changed across generations/decades???

Since the SES health gradient noted in K & H’s mortality study in the 60’s, was shown by Pappas, Queen, Hadder, & Fisher (1993) to be steeper in the 80’s…

This makes me think of doing some sort of multi-state model, looking at the rates of transition between able/disabled and back again by various SES breakdowns.

Of course occupation as one arm of SES is the most likely suspect to work disability among men due to the manual/non-manual divide that comes with it (although the dimensions of this divide shift with time). But doesn’t it seem like the differences between SES as occupation, income, or education in how the track levels of work disability should be informative? I would have to think thru expectations on this.

2007-07-24T14:09:00.001-04:00

1925: Osnato discusses "industrial neuroses": "the problem presented by duration of the post-traumatic psychoneuroses following injury" He's just a wee bit offiensive: "One of the biggest factors which tends to keep the neurosis of these cases alive is the sympathy of friends and relatives. Another factor is that these persons get secret delight in receiving attention from many important men. " Important men such as yourself Osnato? (quietly sending contempt in his general direction)

1968: Nagi sort of starts the proper dialogue in examining work disability

1971: Haber & Smith discuss impact of disability on normative roles

1977: Andrisani joins the discussion on the impact of health on work experiences of men

Beginning with the 1980's the dialogue/debate is now in full swing:

1980: Donald Parsons notes the increase in male nonparticipation in work, and attributes it to the rapid expansion of welfare alternatives to work, principally the Social Security disability program
1980: Yelin examines work disability generally and as it is related to rheumatoid arthritis. Considers social factors a large contributor to work disability.
1981: Ludwig notes: benefit payments and numbers of clients on disability payrolls have substantially increased, while people are less likely to leave the disability roles. Talks about: effects of compensation on the disability process, psychological factors, bureaucratic interests, the weakening work ethic, and changing social values contribute to this problem.
1984: Newacheck notes the near doubling, since 1960, of the proportion of childhood limitations of activity due to chronic illness as reported by the National Health Interview Survey
1986: Anne Borsay writes about our understanding of disability as either a personal trouble or public issue
1986: Chirikos discusses the rising work-disability numbers, and links them to increased morbidity (not just increased government incentives :P)

2007-07-24T00:53:00.000-04:00

The goal of this week is to lay out the key elements of three papers: vars of interest, dataset(s), hypothesis, & overarching conceptual framework to situate it.
Also need to speak to B before leaves for august vacation.

2007-07-18T17:48:00.001-04:00

These are my notes from meeting with J.

To Do:

Read David Cutler NBER working paper and use to guide framing of papers
Work on a single conceptual framework/model to encompass all three papers- bring cohesion
Verbrugge and disablement process: can define the continuum from impairment to limitation to disability.
keep updated- with no communication in August, need to have the basics hammered down on this by the end of the month!
Make picture less blurry! : )

2007-07-17T16:40:00.001-04:00

Met with J more than a couple weeks ago. The goal was only to go a couple weeks, and it's not atypical for time to stretch on me, which means that I need to be very attentive to time and should lay out a guideline schedule for how I plan to reach my first goal of the dissertation proposal ASAP.

Fortunately, I will also have more time to dedicate solely to the dissertation after this month, as I am wrapping up my work with Lizy (which has been very instructive, and a very positive experience).

The general task upon leaving J's office was to continue to further refine my ideas with some quality time with the literature. Specifically, I was to examine literature on moderators between disability and depression.

Following the meeting with J, I met with Doug, and successfully wrangled him onto my committee. (I just asked and he said yes, but wrangled sounds more exciting). He generally agreed that my topics had merit/potential. Suggestions included:

giving special attention to African American males
considering the NHANES- despite this not being longitudinal, he points out that if I could get 2 groups of men in the sames ages but different decades, I could still make a comparison that would suggest trends, such as whether work disability has become more or less (strongly) associated with depression or divorce.
Discuss Parson's treatment of Roles (and Renee Fox). D spoke of taking on the "sickness role".
Also, when I suggested the use of pain as a proxy for poor health (since I am particularly interested in illness that's off the radar- undiagnosed and unidentified), D cautioned me against this, because he thinks that it's whether the pain (disability) interrupts your work or not that most determines how it affects you.
Suggested using the NSFG survey, since it's a longitudinal survey that includes adults well into their 40's- he's concerned that I may miss part of the story by looking at the earlier ages when work disability is less common.
Suggests that I begin writing now, and lay out also the details of the possible surveys (their vars, sizes) and types of methods I might use.

Also, since meeting with Jason, I briefly spoke to Beth. She emphasized the importance of giving the necessary attention to quantitative detail for such a topic. Hmmm....

Well, I worried about this for a day, and then decided that I would actually like to make sure that at least one of these papers really specifically employs my "demographic training". I would like to either have a very close treatment of the construction of the disability rates and whether it makes sense the way we are measuring it, or else build synthetic cohorts and do something fun with them.

Sooo.... I have been torn in several directions over the course of these weeks, doing a bit of all of the above mentioned tasks. It was after that when I realized I wanted this blog to keep me on track and focused and aware of exactly how I'm using my time, so I can really manage this process. Thus it is that I will begin blogging anything and everything dissertation related, with labels for posts for the purpose of isolating different topics/types (meetings, literature, data, etc.) should one desire.

Here I go!

question/purpose

sample size

2007-07-11T20:14:00.000-04:00

Main interest: to focus in on male work disability (broadly defined), highlighting its deleterious impacts through the multiple routes of social role interruption, economic decline, marital strain, depression, etc. In particular I'm interested in inequality in health, and the interaction between poverty and chronic health problems.

There will be three papers for this dissertation. All will examine male work disability specifically. Working-topics for these papers are:

Using a longitudinal dataset (probably the NLSY) to examine predictors of disability insurance uptake. Includes using measures of work commitment to examine whether this relates to the propensity to report work disability and to take the financial handout. [Concern: I don't think I can distinguish disability payout for self from other gov't payments, and payouts to household members besides self]. Does this mean abandon dataset, cause I really don't want to. I really like this cohort.
Using a longitudinal dataset (NLSY) to examine the role of work disability in depression at ages 40 and above. Must be nuanced in some way... Could talk about coping, role expectations, work commitment, and how income impacts this. That sounds good... Invite Parsons to the table, as per D's suggestion.
Using a longitudinal dataset (NLSY) to examine the relationship between work disability and marital instability, including a thorough examination of gender expectations and how that interacts with work disability to produce marital disruption.