The environment for women's health has changed over the last 25 years. Increased use of automobiles can lead to health risks from lack of physical activity. There has also been an increase in access to and consumption of unhealthy food. Other changes in the past 2 to 3 decades include the significant increase in the number of women who are heads of households and responsible for all aspects of a household and family. Many women now are also having children later in life, which poses interesting issues for both biology and sociology. The growing stress faced by women and the effect of stress on health and illness are issues that need a more comprehensive examination, as do issues of mental health and mental illness, which have been more common and thus increasingly prominent issues for U.S. women. In September 2015, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine convened a workshop to shed light on important determinants, consequences, effects, and issues attending the relative disadvantage of women in the United States in comparison with women in other economically advanced nations. This report summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop. Table of Contents Front Matter 1 The Relative Health Disadvantage of U.S. Women 2 Institutional Factors That Influence Differences in Women's Health Outcomes 3 Socioeconomic and Behavioral Factors That Influence Differences in Morbidity and Mortality 4 Future Research Directions Bibliography Appendix A: Workshop Agenda Appendix B: Workshop Participants Appendix C: Biographical Sketches of Steering Committee Members and Speakers

Although people in the United States have historically been reasonably supportive of federal censuses and surveys, they are increasingly unavailable for or not willing to respond to interview requests from federal?as well as private?sources. Moreover, even when people agree to respond to a survey, they increasingly decline to complete all questions, and both survey and item nonresponse are growing problems. In March 2016, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine convened a workshop to consider the respondent burden and its challenges and opportunities of the American Community Survey, which is conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop. Table of Contents Front Matter 1 Introduction: Understanding Response Burden 2 Approaches to Reducing Response Burden 3 Improving Response by Building Respondent Support 4 Using Administrative Records to Reduce Response Burden 5 Using Improved Sampling and Other Methods to Reduce Response Burden 6 Tailoring Collection of Information from Group Quarters 7 Future Directions References Appendix A: Workshop Agenda Appendix B: Biographical Sketches of Steering Committee and Presenters

Sharing research data on public health issues can promote expanded scientific inquiry and has the potential to advance improvements in public health. Although sharing data is the norm in some research fields, sharing of data in public health is not as firmly established. In March 2015, the National Research Council organized an international conference in Stellenbosch, South Africa, to explore the benefits of and barriers to sharing research data within the African context. The workshop brought together public health researchers and epidemiologists primarily from the African continent, along with selected international experts, to talk about the benefits and challenges of sharing data to improve public health, and to discuss potential actions to guide future work related to public health research data sharing. Sharing Research Data to Improve Public Health in Africa summarizes the presentations and discussions from this workshop. Table of Contents Front Matter 1 Introduction 2 Context 3 Establishing Equitable Terms for Data Sharing 4 Exploring the Ethical Imperative for Data Sharing 5 Enabling Data Discoverability, Linkage, and Re-use 6 Next Steps: Maximizing the Use of Data to Improve Public Health Appendix A Workshop Agenda Appendix B Participants

The aging of the population of the United States is occurring at a time of major economic and social changes. These economic changes include consideration of increases in the age of eligibility for Social Security and Medicare and possible changes in benefit levels. Furthermore, changes in the social context in which older individuals and families function may well affect the nature of key social relationships and institutions that define the environment for older persons. Sociology offers a knowledge base, a number of useful analytic approaches and tools, and unique theoretical perspectives that can facilitate understanding of these demographic, economic, and social changes and, to the extent possible, their causes, consequences and implications. New Directions in the Sociology of Aging evaluates the recent contributions of social demography, social epidemiology and sociology to the study of aging and identifies promising new research directions in these sub-fields. Included in this study are nine papers prepared by experts in sociology, demography, social genomics, public health, and other fields, that highlight the broad array of tools and perspectives that can provide the basis for further advancing the understanding of aging processes in ways that can inform policy. This report discusses the role of sociology in what is a wide-ranging and diverse field of study; a proposed three-dimensional conceptual model for studying social processes in aging over the life cycle; a review of existing databases, data needs and opportunities, primarily in the area of measurement of interhousehold and intergenerational transmission of resources, biomarkers and biosocial interactions; and a summary of roadblocks and bridges to transdisciplinary research that will affect the future directions of the field of sociology of aging. Table of Contents Front Matter PART I: FINAL REPORT Summary 1 Introduction and Approach 2 A Conceptual Model of Aging for the Next Generation of Research 3 Data Needs and Opportunities 4 Roadblocks and Bridges to Transdisciplinary Research References Appendix: Biographical Sketches of Panel Members PART II: PAPERS 5 Introduction and Overview--Linda J. Waite 6 The New Realities of Aging: Social and Economic Contexts--Jacqueline L. Angel and Richard A. Settersten, Jr. 7 Research Opportunities in the Demography of Aging--Melissa Hardy and Vegard Skirbekk 8 Networks, Neighborhoods, and Institutions: An Integrated "Activity Space" Approach for Research on Aging--Kathleen A. Cagney, Christopher R. Browning, Aubrey L. Jackson, and Brian Soller 9 Constrained Choices: The Shifting Institutional Contexts of Aging and the Life Course--Phyllis Moen 10 Opportunities and Challenges in the Study of Biosocial Dynamics in Healthy Aging--Tara L. Gruenewald 11 The Loyal Opposition: A Commentary on "Opportunities and Challenges in the Study of Biosocial Dynamics in Healthy Aging"--Maxine Weinstein, Dana A. Glei, and Noreen Goldman 12 Social Genomics and the Life Course: Opportunities and Challenges for Multilevel Population Research--Michael J. Shanahan 13 The Challenge of Social Genomics: A Commentary on "Social Genomics and the Life Course: Opportunities and Challenges for Multilevel Population Research"--Jason Schnittker 14 Interventions to Promote Health and Prevent Disease: Perspectives on Clinical Trials Past, Present, and Future--S. Leonard Syme and Abby C. King Committee on Population

For many household surveys in the United States, responses rates have been steadily declining for at least the past two decades. A similar decline in survey response can be observed in all wealthy countries. Efforts to raise response rates have used such strategies as monetary incentives or repeated attempts to contact sample members and obtain completed interviews, but these strategies increase the costs of surveys. This review addresses the core issues regarding survey nonresponse. It considers why response rates are declining and what that means for the accuracy of survey results. These trends are of particular concern for the social science community, which is heavily invested in obtaining information from household surveys. The evidence to date makes it apparent that current trends in nonresponse, if not arrested, threaten to undermine the potential of household surveys to elicit information that assists in understanding social and economic issues. The trends also threaten to weaken the validity of inferences drawn from estimates based on those surveys. High nonresponse rates create the potential or risk for bias in estimates and affect survey design, data collection, estimation, and analysis. The survey community is painfully aware of these trends and has responded aggressively to these threats. The interview modes employed by surveys in the public and private sectors have proliferated as new technologies and methods have emerged and matured. To the traditional trio of mail, telephone, and face-to-face surveys have been added interactive voice response (IVR), audio computer-assisted self-interviewing (ACASI), web surveys, and a number of hybrid methods. Similarly, a growing research agenda has emerged in the past decade or so focused on seeking solutions to various aspects of the problem of survey nonresponse; the potential solutions that have been considered range from better training and deployment of interviewers to more use of incentives, better use of the information collected in the data collection, and increased use of auxiliary information from other sources in survey design and data collection. Nonresponse in Social Science Surveys: A Research Agenda also documents the increased use of information collected in the survey process in nonresponse adjustment. Table of Contents Front Matter Summary 1 The Growing Problem of Nonresponse 2 Nonresponse Bias 3 Mitigating the Consequences of Nonresponse 4 Approaches to Improving Survey Response 5 Research Agenda References and Selected Bibliography Acronyms and Abbreviations Appendix A: Nonresponse Research in Federal Statistical Agencies Appendix B: Research Agenda Topics Suggested by the Literature Appendix C: Biographical Sketches of Panel Members Committee on National Statistics

This report summarizes the proceedings of a workshop convened in June 2010 to critically examine the various databases that could provide national and state-level estimates of low-income uninsured children and could be effectively used as criteria for monitoring children's health insurance coverage. Table of Contents Front Matter Part I: Workshop Summary 1 Introduction 2 The Changing Policy Context 3 Federal Surveys 4 Administrative Databases 5 State Data Collections 6 Modeling Strategies for Improving Estimates 7 Looking Ahead References Part II: Background Papers 8 Monitoring Children's Health Insurance Coverage Under CHIPRA Using Federal Surveys--Genevieve Kenney and Victoria Lynch 9 Health Insurance Coverage in the American Community Survey: A Comparison to Two Other Federal Surveys--Joanna Turner and Michel Boudreaux 10 Income and Poverty Measurement in Surveys of Health Insurance Coverage--John L. Czajka 11 Using Uninsured Data to Track State CHIP Programs--John McInerney 12 The Massachusetts Experience: Using Survey Data to Evaluate State Health Care Reform--Sharon K. Long 13 Small-Domain Estimation of Health Insurance Coverage--Brett O'Hara and Mark Bauder Appendix A: Workshop Agenda and Participants Appendix B: Biographical Sketches of Steering Committee Members Committee on National Statistics

Among the poorest and least developed regions in the world, sub-Saharan Africa has long faced a heavy burden of disease, with malaria, tuberculosis, and, more recently, HIV being among the most prominent contributors to that burden. Yet in most parts of Africa-and especially in those areas with the greatest health care needs-the data available to health planners to better understand and address these problems are extremely limited. The vast majority of Africans are born and will die without being recorded in any document or spearing in official statistics. With few exceptions, African countries have no civil registration systems in place and hence are unable to continuously generate vital statistics or to provide systematic information on patterns of cause of death, relying instead on periodic household-level surveys or intense and continuous monitoring of small demographic surveillance sites to provide a partial epidemiological and demographic profile of the population. In 1991 the Committee on Population of the National Academy of Sciences organized a workshop on the epidemiological transition in developing countries. The workshop brought together medical experts, epidemiologists, demographers, and other social scientists involved in research on the epidemiological transition in developing countries to discuss the nature of the ongoing transition, identify the most important contributors to the overall burden of disease, and discuss how such information could be used to assist policy makers in those countries to establish priorities with respect to the prevention and management of the main causes of ill health. This report summarizes the presentations and discussions from a workshop convened in October 2011 that featured invited speakers on the topic of epidemiological transition in sub-Saharan Africa. The workshop was organized by a National Research Council panel of experts in various aspects of the study of epidemiological transition and of sub-Saharan data sources. The Continuing Epidemiological Transition in Sub-Saharan Africa serves as a factual summary of what occurred at the workshop in October 2011. Table of Contents Front Matter 1 Introduction 2 The Changing Context of the Transition in sub-Saharan Africa 3 Mortality and Causes of Death 4 Risk Factor Transitions: Exposures and Comparative Risk Assessment 5 The Role of Migration 6 Health Financing in sub-Saharan Africa 7 Data Collection and Validation in Resource-Poor Settings 8 The Epidemiological Transition in Africa: Are There Lessons from Asia? 9 Future Research Directions References Appendix A Workshop Agenda Appendix B Participant List Appendix C Biographical Sketches of Steering Committee Members and Presenters

This report examines the portfolio of research and development (R&D) expenditure surveys at the National Science Foundation (NSF), identifying gaps and weaknesses and areas of missing coverage. The report takes an in-depth look at the definition of R&D, the needs and potential uses of NSF's R&D data by a variety of users, the goals of an integrated system of surveys and other data collection activities, and the quality of the data collected in the existing Science Resources Statistics surveys. Table of Contents Front Matter Executive Summary 1 Introduction 2 Uses and Users 3 Measuring R&D in Business and Industry 4 Measuring Innovation in Business and Industry 5 Measuring R&D Spending by the Federal Government 6 Measuring R&D Activity in Academic Institutions 7 Analysis of the R&D Data Funding Discrepancies 8 Survey Management and Adminstrative Issues References Appendix A: Workshop Agenda Appendix B: Biographical Sketches of Panel Members and Staff

Respirators are used in a variety of workplaces including emergency response, mining operations, construction, manufacturing, and hospitals. In 2001, National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioned a nationwide survey of respirator use in the workplace, the results of which were published in the 2003 report Respirator Usage in Private Sector Firms. The purpose of the survey was to evaluate respirator use and practices, including training practices and the value of respirator manufacturer's instruction, in order to help guide NIOSH respirator certification and research. This National Research Council (NRC) report evaluates the survey in terms of several measures such as the adequacy and appropriateness of the survey instrument, the survey methodology, data analysis, and the conclusions drawn from the data. The NRC report finds that the survey was an important first step in collecting respiratory protection data from a probability sample but that several improvements could be made in survey design and analysis. Based on the review of the survey, the NRC report concludes that data on respirator use would be best provided by employers and employees in the context of the work setting. Table of Contents Front Matter Summary 1 A Significant Undertaking 2 A Program in Transformation 3 The Survey of Respirator Use and Practices: A Learning Experience 4 Lessons Learned 5 Planning for the Future Appendix A Statement of Task Appendix B Biographical Sketches of Committee Members and Staff Appendix C Meeting Agenda Appendix D Acronyms and Abbreviations Appendix E Interagency Agreement between CDC/NIOSH and BLS