NORC staff members presented more than two dozen papers and posters May 14 - 16 at the 2009 American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) Annual Conference in Hollywood, Florida. 
See the full list of papers and presenters here.

NORC's International Projects Department has entered into a contract with the Millennium Development Authority (MiDA) of Ghana to conduct an impact evaluation of Feeder Roads Activity in 8 of its 23 program districts. The evaluation will use data from a series of surveys of markets. Data will be collected in an estimated 308 villages.
 
NORC will provide overall management and technical expertise for the evaluation, including developing the survey questionnaire, sample selection, interviewer training protocols, and oversight of data collection. Subcontractor Pentx Consulting of Ghana will collect the data. NORC will also analyze the data to examine changes in prices over time, assessing the relationship between price changes and road improvements using Geographic Information System (GIS) data. 
 
This impact evolution is part of the larger impact evaluation of all MiDA activities being carried out by the Institute of Statistical, Social, Economic, and Research (ISSER) using the GLSS as the primary instrument in the overall evaluation.
 
NORC Senior Fellow Ray Struyk is the project director.

 

NORC's Academic Research Centers will support ongoing research supported by the Chicago-based Spencer Foundation to assess the readiness of children in Chicago's schools. The CSRP tests the impact of comprehensive teacher training and mental health consultation services on Head Start classroom processes, on young children's self-regulation, and on their later academic achievement.  The current wave of the study, titled Testing CSRP's Impact on Low-Income Children's Outcomes in the Third Grade, will require mail and in-person data collection from both the parents and teachers.

 

The CSRP study is headed by C. Cybele Raver, a faculty member in applied psychology at New York University and director of NYU's Institute of Human Development and Social Change. Professor Raver began the study while a faculty member at the Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies. Michael Reynolds is the NORC project director.

 

NORC's Substance Abuse, Mental Health, and Criminal Justice Department will continue its long-running investigation of youth smoking initiation and progression to nicotine dependence.
 
In support of Principal Investigator Denise Kandel, professor of sociomedical sciences at Columbia University, NORC will conduct the study Nicotine Dependence in Early Adulthood. This is the sixth wave of a longitudinal study of youth and their parents. In addition to illuminating the natural history of smoking and nicotine dependence among adolescents, the study investigates risk and protective factors that explain why some youth become dependent on nicotine and others do not.  
 
The project is supported by two grants to Columbia, one from the American Legacy Foundation and the other from the National Institute on Drug Abuse.  David Herda is the project director.

 

The Health Care Research Department, is pleased to announce a new project in support of the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) of the Department of Veterans Affairs.
 
Working in partnership with Patriot Technologies, NORC will conduct an evaluation for the Office of Information at the VHA Emerging Health Technologies Department around emerging point-of-care technologies. NORC will evaluate the technologies, develop materials for a reference library, and pilot test prioritized technologies. 
 
NORC staff members will serve as subject matter experts, conduct literature reviews, develop the reference library, and conduct the evaluation of pilot tests of these point-of-care technologies. Cait Cusack is the project director.

 

NORC's Health Care Research Department has been awarded three contracts for research on health benefits provided by employers:
 
California Employer Health Benefits Survey
NORC will survey California employers to gather data on the firms' health benefits. Funded by the California HealthCare Foundation, these annual surveys approach private and public employers with three or more workers on a variety of topics related to health insurance including cost, coverage, plan choice and more.
 
NORC will collaborate in designing the survey instrument, creating the sampling frame, administering the survey, database construction including weights and imputations, analysis, and writing of the annual report. Heidi Whitmore is the project director.
 
Employer Health Benefits Survey
NORC will conduct a national survey of employers, examining their health benefits. Funded by the Kaiser Family Foundation and managed by the Health Research and Educational Trust, the annual study surveys private and public employers with three or more workers.  
 
NORC will collaborate in all aspects of the survey and analysis. Heidi Whitmore is the project director. Learn more.

 
Impact of Health Care Reform in California on Businesses and Workers
In support of the University of California Center for Labor Research and Education, NORC will use health claims data to examine variation in risk profiles of employees within and across small and large employers.  The primary measure of risk is claims expenses per employee.  The study will also examine the impact on premiums if the rules of the marketplace-medical underwriting-are changed for different firms and patient populations. NORC Senior Fellow Jon Gabel is the project director. 

 

Research Associates Leonid Gavrilov and Natalia Garilova of NORC's Center on Aging will use a new grant from the National Institute on Aging to study why people live to be 100 years or older.
 
The co-investigators have written extensively on extreme longevity. Their work has recently shown that longevity can be linked to a mother's age at her child's birth, birthplace within in the United States, and family socioeconomic background.
 
The investigators will look at effects of early-life conditions, adult physical characteristics, and marriage and reproductive history on exceptional longevity. The new study takes advantage of U.S. Census and Social Security Administration data, genealogies, and military draft records. Researchers at the universities of Pennsylvania, Utah, and Wisconsin will also collaborate. Learn more about the project here.

 

 
NORC will provide survey support to CEMSE for their work with the Chicago Public Schools to develop tools to enable school and district leaders to better understand the range of ways teachers use science and math instructional materials and, further, to understand the nature of the adaptations they make when using them. An anticipated outcome of this effort is to help school and district leaders better understand how and in what ways the science and mathematics programs they select meet, and fail to meet, the needs of teachers and students. Cindy Simko is the NORC project director.

 

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