bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Primary Care, Social Inequalities, and All-Cause, Heart Disease, and Cancer Mortality in US Counties, 1990
Authors: Shi Leiyu , Macinko James , Starfield Barbara , Politzer Robert , Wulu John , Xu Jiahong 
Published: March 2005

Objectives. We tested the association between the availability of primary care and income inequality on several categories of mortality in US counties. Methods. We used cross-sectional analysis of data from counties (n=3081) in 1990, including analysis of variance and multivariate ordinary least squares regression. Independent variables included primary care resources, income inequality, and sociodemographics. Results. Counties with higher availability of primary care resources experienced between 2% and 3% lower mortality than counties with less primary care. Counties with high income inequality experienced between 11% and 13% higher mortality than counties with less inequality. Conclusions. Primary care resources may partially moderate the effects of income inequality on health outcomes at the county level.
The Community Action Model: A Community-Driven Model Designed to Address Disparities in Health
Authors: Hennessey Lavery Susana , Smith Mele Lau , Esparza Alma Avila , Hrushow Alyonik , Moore Melinda , Reed Diane F. 
Published: March 2005

The community action model is a 5-step, community-driven model designed to build communities’ capacity to address health disparities through mobilization. Fundamental to the model is a critical analysis identifying the underlying social, economic, and environmental forces that create health and social inequities in a community. The goal is to provide communities with the framework necessary to acquire the skills and resources to plan, implement, and evaluate health-related actions and policies. The model was developed in the context of tobacco-related health disparities. Concrete policy outcomes demonstrate the model’s potential application to a wide variety of grassroots policy development efforts.
Building on Leadership and Social Capital to Create Change in 2 Urban Communities
Authors: Farquhar Stephanie A. , Michael Yvonne L. , Wiggins Noelle 
Published: March 2005

There has been an appeal to reduce health inequities by increasing community involvement and social capital. Poder es Salud/Power for Health is a community-based participatory prevention research project that seeks to address health disparities in the African American and Latino communities by enhancing community-level social capital. We provide specific examples of how this intervention uses community health workers and popular education to reduce language and cultural barriers and enhance community social capital. Although the communities share fundamental challenges related to health disparities, the ways in which the Latino and African American communities identify health concerns, create solutions, and think about social capital vary. Members of the project are working together to identify opportunities for cross-cultural collaboration.
Jacobson v Massachusetts at 100 Years: Police Power and Civil Liberties in Tension
Authors: Gostin Lawrence O. 
Published: March 2005

A century ago, the US Supreme Court in Jacobson v Massachusetts upheld the exercise of the police power to protect the public’s health. Despite intervening scientific and legal advances, public health practitioners still struggle with Jacobson’s basic tension between individual liberty and the common good. In affirming Massachusetts’ compulsory vaccination law, the Court established a floor of constitutional protections that consists of 4 standards: necessity, reasonable means, proportionality, and harm avoidance. Under Jacobson, the courts are to support public health matters insofar as these standards are respected. If the Court today were to decide Jacobson once again, the analysis would likely differ—to account for developments in constitutional law—but the outcome would certainly reaffirm the basic power of government to safeguard the public’s health.
Jacobson v Massachusetts: It’s Not Your Great-Great-Grandfather’s Public Health Law
Authors: Mariner Wendy K. , Annas George J. , Glantz Leonard H. 
Published: March 2005

Jacobson v Massachusetts, a 1905 US Supreme Court decision, raised questions about the power of state government to protect the public’s health and the Constitution’s protection of personal liberty. We examined conceptions about state power and personal liberty in Jacobson and later cases that expanded, superseded, or even ignored those ideas. Public health and constitutional law have evolved to better protect both health and human rights. States’ sovereign power to make laws of all kinds has not changed in the past century. What has changed is the Court’s recognition of the importance of individual liberty and how it limits that power. Preserving the public’s health in the 21st century requires preserving respect for personal liberty.
Efficient Portfolios in the Asset Liability Context
Authors: Keel Alex , Müller Heinz H. 
Published: March 2005

AbstractThe set of efficient portfolios in an asset liability model is discussed in detail. The occurence of liabilities leads to a parallel shift of the efficient set. Under an appropriate assumption, the shift vector can be decomposed in different components. For the special case, where the investor is a pension fund, it is shown how shortfall constraints can be reconciled with efficiency. Finally, optimality conditions for the market portfolio are derived.
Does Markov-Modulation Increase the Risk?
Authors: Asmussen Søren , Frey Andreas , Rolski Tomasz , Schmidt Volker 
Published: March 2005

AbstractIn this paper we compare ruin functions for two risk processes with respect to stochastic ordering, stop-loss ordering and ordering of adjustment coefficients. The risk processes are as follows: in the Markov-modulated environment and the associated averaged compound Poisson model. In the latter case the arrival rate is obtained by averaging over time the arrival rate in the Markov modulated model and the distribution of the claim size is obtained by averaging the ones over consecutive claim sizes.
Community Rating and Equalisation
Authors: Neuhaus Walther 
Published: March 2005

AbstractSeveral countries have made community rating mandatory for certain lines of insurance, particularly health insurance. This paper offers a theoretical solution to the problem of designing equalisation schemes to support community rating in a market where different insurers are selling different benefit plans. The criterion chosen is that an equalisation scheme should minimise the opportunities for arbitrage between insurers, which community rating otherwise would generate. Several possible measures of arbitrage are presented, and the optimal schemes are compared against data from Australian health insurers. Finally, the approach is extended to partial community rating, for example unisex rating.
Modelling of Discretized Claim Numbers in Loss Reserving
Authors: Hesselager Ole 
Published: March 2005

AbstractWe investigate the usual method of discretizing loss reserving data by calendar year and show how this procedure may introduce fluctuations in the delay probabilities. These fluctuations, when treated as random fluctuations, possess a special correlation structure and we present a simple credibility method accounting for these fluctuations. The results are illustrated by a numerical example.
Some Stable Algorithms in Ruin Theory and Their Applications
Authors: Dickson David C.M. , dos Reis Alfredo D. Egídio , Waters Howard R. 
Published: March 2005

AbstractIn this paper we present a stable recursive algorithm for the calculation of the probability of ultimate ruin in the classical risk model. We also present stable recursive algorithms for the calculation of the joint and marginal distributions of the surplus prior to ruin and the severity of ruin. In addition we present bounds for these distributions.
Pension Funding With Time Delays and the Optimal Spread Period
Authors: Haberman Steven 
Published: March 2005

AbstractThe paper extends earlier results by demonstrating that there is an optimal range of values for the period for amortizing valuation surpluses or deficiencies, in the case when there is a one year time delay between fixing a contribution rate and the accounting information about current fund levels. The optimal range is compared for the cases where there is no time delay and there is a one year time delay.
A Teacher's Remark on Exact Credibility
Authors: Gerber Hans U. 
Published: March 2005

In the classical Bayesian approach to credibility the claims are conditionally independent and identically distributed random variables, with common density f(x, ϑ). The unknown parameter ϑ is a realization of a random variable Θ having initial (prior) density u(ϑ). LetThe initial pure premium isThe premium for X t + 1, given X1 +, …, Xt, is the conditional expectationA central question is for which pairs f(x, ϑ) and u (ϑ) this expression is linear, i.e. of the formwhere is the observed average. This is indeed the case for about half a dozen famous examples. Jewell (1974) has found an elegant and general approach to unify these examples, see also Goovaerts and Hoogstad (1987, chapter 2). The classical examples can be retrieved as special cases; however a preliminary reparameterization has to be performed on a case by case basis. The purpose of this note is to propose an alternative (but of course strongly related) formulation of the general model, from which the classical examples can be retrieved in a straightforward way.
A semimartingale approach to some problems in Risk Theory
Authors: Sørensen Michael 
Published: March 2005

AbstractThe purpose of this note is to draw attention to a semimartingale method which can be applied to very general types of risk models to obtain local martingales or martingales, which can then be used in the now classical way to evaluate ruin probabilities. Relations to the theory of exponential families of stochastic processes are also pointed out and utilized.
Premium Calculation by Transforming the Layer Premium Density
Authors: Wang Shaun 
Published: March 2005

AbstractThis paper examines a class of premium functionals which are (i) comonotonic additive and (ii) stochastic dominance preservative. The representation for this class is a transformation of the decumulative distribution function. It has close connections with the recent developments in economic decision theory and non-additive measure theory. Among a few elementary members of this class, the proportional hazard transform seems to stand out as being most plausible for actuaries.
Claims Reserving in Continuous Time; A Nonparametric Bayesian Approach
Authors: Haastrup Svend , Arjas Elja 
Published: March 2005

AbstractOccurrences and developments of claims are modelled as a marked point process. The individual claim consists of an occurrence time, two covariates, a reporting delay, and a process describing partial payments and settlement of the claim. Under certain likelihood assumptions the distribution of the process is described by 14 one-dimensional components. The modelling is nonparametric Bayesian. The posterior distribution of the components and the posterior distribution of the outstanding IBNR and RBNS liabilities are found simultaneously. The method is applied to a portfolio of accident insurances.
Improved Analytical Bounds for Some Risk Quantities
Authors: Hürlimann Werner 
Published: March 2005

AbstractSimple analytical lower and upper bounds are obtained for stop-loss premiums and ruin probabilities of compound Poisson risks in case the mean, variance and range of the claim size distribution are known. They are based on stop-loss extremal distributions and improve the bounds derived earlier from dangerous extremal distributions. The special bounds obtained in case the relative variance of the claim size is unknown, but its maximal value is known, are related to other actuarial results.
On Bounds for the Difference Between the Stop-Loss Transforms of Two Compound Distributions
Authors: Sundt Bjørn , Jan Dhaene  
Published: March 2005

AbstractIn the present note we deduce a class of bounds for the difference between the stop-loss transforms of two compound distributions with the same severity distribution. The class contains bounds of any degree of accuracy in the sense that the bounds can be chosen as close to the exact value as desired; the time required to compute the bounds increases with the accuracy.
Optimal Estimation Under Linear Constraints
Authors: Neuhaus Walther 
Published: March 2005

AbstractThis paper shows how a multivariate Bayes estimator can be adjusted to satisfy a set of linear constraints. In the direct approach, the constraint is enforced by a restriction on the class of admissible estimators. In an alternative approach, the constraint is merely encouraged by a mixed risk function which penalises misbalance between the estimator and the constraint. The adjustment to the optimal unconstrained estimator is shown to depend on the risk function and the linear constraints only, not on the probability model underlying the Bayes estimator. Two practical examples are given, one of which involves reconciliation of independently assessed share values with current market values.
An Extension of Mack's Model for the Chain Ladder Method
Authors: Schmidt Klaus D. , Schnaus Anja 
Published: March 2005

AbstractThe chain ladder method is a simple and suggestive tool in claims reserving, and various attempts have been made aiming at its justification in a stochastic model. Remarkable progress has been achieved by Schnieper and Mack who considered models involving assumptions on conditional distributions. The present paper extends the model of Mack and proposes a basic model in a decision theoretic setting. The model allows to characterize optimality of the chain ladder factors as predictors of non-observable development factors and hence optimality of the chain ladder predictors of aggregate claims at the end of the first non-observable calendar year. We also present a model in which the chain ladder predictor of ultimate aggregate claims turns out to be unbiased.
Credibility Theory and Generalized Linear Models
Authors: Nelder J.A. , Verrall R.J. 
Published: March 2005

AbstractThis paper shows how credibility theory can be encompassed within the theory of Hierarchical Generalized Linear Models. It is shown that credibility estimates are obtained by including random effects in the model. The framework of Hierarchical Generalized Linear Models allows a more extensive range of models to be used than straightforward credibility theory. The model fitting and testing procedures can be carried out using a standard statistical package. Thus, the paper contributes a further range of models which may be useful in a wide range of actuarial applications, including premium rating and claims reserving.
Estimating the Tails of Loss Severity Distributions Using Extreme Value Theory
Authors: McNeil Alexander J. 
Published: March 2005

AbstractGood estimates for the tails of loss severity distributions are essential for pricing or positioning high-excess loss layers in reinsurance. We describe parametric curve-fitting methods for modelling extreme historical losses. These methods revolve around the generalized Pareto distribution and are supported by extreme value theory. We summarize relevant theoretical results and provide an extensive example of their application to Danish data on large fire insurance losses.
The Practical Replacement of a Bonus-Malus System
Authors: Walhin J.F. , Paris J. 
Published: March 2005

AbstractIn this paper we will show how to set up a practical bonus-malus system with a finite number of classes. We will use the actual claim amount and claims frequency distributions in order to predict the future observed claims frequency when the new bonus-malus system will be in use. The future observed claims frequency is used to set up an optimal bonus-malus system as well as the transient and stationary distributions of the drivers in the new bonus-malus system. When the number of classes as well as the transition rules of the new bonus-malus system have been adopted, the premium levels are obtained by minimizing a certain distance between the levels of the practical bonus-malus system and the corresponding optimal bonus-malus system. Some iterations are necessary in order to reach stabilization of the future observed claims frequency and the levels of the practical bonus-malus system.
Reduced folate carrier gene is a risk factor for neural tube defects in a Chinese population
Authors: Pei Lijun , Zhu Huiping , Ren Aiguo , Li Zhiwen , Hao Ling , Finnell Richard H. , Li Zhu 
Published: March 2005

AbstractBACKGROUNDThere is a considerable body of data demonstrating that periconceptional supplementation of folic acid can prevent a significant proportion of neural tube defects (NTDs). At present, the mechanism by which folic acid exerts its beneficial effect remains unknown. Folate transporter genes, including the reduced folate carrier gene (RFC1), have been proposed as NTD risk factors.METHODSThe study population included 104 nuclear families with NTDs and 100 nonmalformed control families. We investigated the possible association between a common RFC1 polymorphism (A80G) and NTD risk among offspring, as well as potential gene‐environment interactions between the infant RFC1 genotype and maternal periconceptional use of folic acid through a population‐based case‐control study.RESULTSWe observed that the infants of the GG genotype were associated with a 2.56‐fold increased risk of NTDs when compared to the AA genotype (odds ratio [OR], 2.56; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.04–6.36) in our study population. Among mothers who did not utilize folic acid supplements, the risk for having a child with an NTD was 3.30 (95% CI, 1.15–9.65) for offspring with the GG genotype, compared to the reference (AA) genotype. Children who had the GG genotype and whose mothers did not take folic acid had an elevated risk for NTDs (OR, 8.80; 95% CI, 2.83–28.69), compared to offspring with the AA and GA genotypes whose mothers utilized folic acid supplements.CONCLUSIONSOur findings suggest that the RFC1 G allele is likely to be an important genetic factor in determining folate transport and subsequently may be a risk factor for NTDs in this Chinese population. Birth Defects Research (Part A), 2005. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
The effects of psychosocial methods on depressed, aggressive and apathetic behaviors of people with dementia: a systematic review
Authors: Verkaik Renate , van Weert Julia C. M. , Francke Anneke L. 
Published: March 2005

AbstractObjectivesThis systematic review seeks to establish the extent of scientific evidence for the effectiveness of 13 psychosocial methods for reducing depressed, aggressive or apathetic behaviors in people with dementia.MethodsThe guidelines of the Cochrane Collaboration were followed. Using a predefined protocol, ten electronic databases were searched, studies selected, relevant data extracted and the methodological quality of the studies assessed. With a Best Evidence Synthesis the results of the included studies were synthesized and conclusions about the level of evidence for the effectiveness of each psychosocial method were drawn.ResultsThere is some evidence that Multi Sensory Stimulation/Snoezelen in a Multi Sensory Room reduces apathy in people in the latter phases of dementia. Furthermore, there is scientific evidence, although limited, that Behavior Therapy‐Pleasant Events and Behavior Therapy‐Problem Solving reduce depression in people with probable Alzheimer's disease who are living at home with their primary caregiver. There is also limited evidence that Psychomotor Therapy Groups reduce aggression in a specific group of nursing home residents diagnosed with probable Alzheimer's disease. For the other ten psychosocial methods there are no or insufficient indications that they reduce depressive, aggressive or apathetic behaviors in people with dementia.ConclusionsAlthough the evidence for the effectiveness of some psychosocial methods is stronger than for others, overall the evidence remains quite modest and further research needs to be carried out. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
The effect of integrated emotion‐oriented care versus usual care on elderly persons with dementia in the nursing home and on nursing assistants: a randomized clinical trial
Authors: Finnema Evelyn , Dröes Rose‐Marie , Ettema Teake , Ooms Marcel , Adèr Herman , Ribbe Miel , Tilburg Willem van 
Published: March 2005

AbstractObjectivesTo examine the effect of integrated emotion‐oriented care on nursing home residents with dementia and nursing assistants.DesignA multi‐site randomized clinical trial with matched groups, and measurements at baseline and after seven months.SettingSixteen psychogeriatric wards in fourteen nursing homes in the Netherlands.ParticipantsOne hundred and forty‐six elderly residents with the diagnosis dementia of the Alzheimer (DAT) type, mixed DAT and vascular dementia, and dementia syndrome (NAO) and 99 nursing assistants.InterventionsIntegrated emotion‐oriented care and usual care.MesurementsDemented elderly: Behaviour and mood related to adaptation to the illness and the institutionalization. Nursing assistants: General health as measured by feelings of stress, stress reactions, feeling of competence and illness.ResultsPositive effects in favour of the integrated emotion‐oriented care were found in mild to moderately demented residents on two adaptive tasks: maintaining an emotional balance (less anxiety) and preserving a positive self‐image (less dissatisfaction). In the trained group of nursing assistants fewer stress reactions were found only in those who perceived improvement in their emotion‐oriented care skills after training.ConclusionEmotion‐oriented care is more effective with regard to the emotional adaptation in nursing homes of persons with a mild to moderate dementia. For the severely demented elderly we did not find this surplus value. This outcome is of clinical importance for elderly persons with dementia who are cared for in nursing homes. With respect to the nursing assistants it is concluded that emotion‐oriented care has a positive influence on stress reactions in some of them. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
The factor structure of the hospital anxiety and depression scale in older individuals with acquired amputations: a comparison of four models using confirmatory factor analysis
Authors: Desmond Deirdre M. , MacLachlan Malcolm 
Published: March 2005

AbstractBackgroundThere has been little attention to the underlying dimensional structure of the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) in analyses involving individuals older than 65 years of age despite its routine application in this age group.MethodsThe factor structure of the HADS was investigated using a sample of 680 veterans with limb amputations who were aged at least 66 years (mean 79.0, SD 5.02; range 66–92) Four models were specified and estimated using Lisrel 8.54. Model 1 specified a uni‐dimensional structure. Model 2 specified a correlated two‐factor model. Model 3 specified a correlated two‐factor model but with cross factor loadings for item 7. Model 4 specified a three‐factor model after Clark and Watson's (1991) tripartite theory of anxiety and depression.ResultsModels 2, 3 and 4 were found to adequately fit the data. However, on balance, model 4 was found to be a better explanation of the data than the alternative specifications.ConclusionsThe results indicate that factor models for the HADS developed in younger samples are replicable with older adults, thus supporting the suggestion that the HADS structure is invariant for age. However, considering the composition of the current sample, i.e. veterans with limb amputations, further research is necessary to determine whether these findings are generalisable to the wider population of older adults. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.