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Sumaya Rashdan
Sumaya Rashdan
RCR Week 11
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RCR Week 11
This week’s notes were especially helpful for me. I did learn a whole lot about the types of data, scales, ratings, and confounds which are very new to me, it is the first time I ever learn about these. Firstly, according to our course notes, the 4 main types of data are Nominal, Ordinal, Interval and Ratio. 2 examples of each are number one: nominal: from the notes it says the U.S. Census questions so that could also be the types of ethnicities. Ordinal: the scales of opinion that could also include grades of assignments based on grading how good or not good the student did on the assignment. Next, we have interval: from the notes, it says temperature, so that could also be an IQ number or score of games. Lastly, we have the ratio; Age and income also height, and weight. I see here in the notes that the most valid results are the ratio variables. It’s all because they are “the gold standard of types of data” and that leads to the most accurate “research result.” I think it’s because when for example measuring height and weight and the age of a person or time on a clock, all those are 100 % accurate numbers based upon evidence of devices used.
An instrument in a study is the procedure of “collecting data from subjects for a research study”. Its primary purpose is to simply collect data the right way. Surveys are orally administered non written “containing a set of questions, especially one addressed to a statistically significant number of subjects; questionnaires usually contain a particular scale or measurement that has been constructed by the researcher to determine participants’ perspectives, self-representation, or reports; questionnaires are usually designed to get participants’ perspectives on a topic or self-representations/reports on a topic” The questionnaires are the same exact thing just the difference is that they are “written.” They are most useful for the data that represents the “perspectives on a topic or self-representations/reports on a topic.” “A scale is a device for assigning units of analysis to categories of a variable” … they are designed to help researchers rank, order, or measure things that may typically not be able to 3 be ranked, ordered, or measured.” Its purpose is stated in the notes clearly, “The purpose of indexes is often to find out how much a person knows something, is familiar with something, or can identify something (in other words, the underlying value is knowledge of the material); This type of scale is very helpful as an instrument to measure individuals’ knowledge of things.” For example, I decided to choose the semantic differential scale which is the “more subjective understanding of the participant’s interpretation of things.” “(SD) measures people’s reactions to stimulus words and concepts in terms of ratings on bipolar scales defined with contrasting adjectives at each end” The example of this scale is in the course skill notes: the breastfeeding vs formula feeding and it’s rated good or bad from 0-3 on each side and then there is also the last scale which is a combo of both with the same numbering. Zero means neutral.
Course skill notes: “Validity is an indication of how sound your research is. More specifically, validity applies to both the design and the methods of your research.” Internal validity is: “This is when the researcher attempts to prevent the results of a study from being affected by flaws within the study itself.” External Validity is: “This is the extent to which you can generalize your findings to a larger group or other contexts.” They both are different because internal validity tries to “prevent research flaws.” While external validity is not very accurate when it comes to the example stated in the notes, “, if the subjects are all males from one ethnic group, your findings might not apply to females or other ethnic groups. Or, if you conducted your research in a highly controlled laboratory environment, your findings may not faithfully represent what might happen in the real world.” The flaws in the internal validity are called “confounds.” One example of the internal confound is the mortality confound and this one is interesting because this can hurt the research study because when one of the people participating in the experiment passes away, then they cannot participate in the study anymore, their perspective doesn’t count. This obviously as stated, “may affect the measurement and outcomes.” For external validity, I chose the researcher or experimenter Effect confound which can be biased in a way depending on the person because of the “instance conscious or unconscious age, race, gender.” This can be like a child is younger and his or her emotions comply differently which the studies or experiments at the moment.
My question as I stated before is “Can Religion Determine One’s Understanding of the Origin of Life?”. The types of data that would best fit the research questions I’d consider would be the ordinal variables on whether or not a person would agree or disagree with the question above, and the interval variable just because I include numbers of verses, measurements of the aspects of embryology, and dates of certain articles. Instruments may be used in my essay depending on what I ask. Interviews (Professore Moore), and I would do a written form of a questionnaire asking logical, scientific questions backed upon evidence to understand peoples’ perspectives in the 21st century. To further understand peoples’ beliefs, I would use the Likert scale, just because that would help me to know the perspective of each person on answering this question after they have very carefully read and pondered upon the essay that I wrote. Two confounds I need to be wary about would probably be from the internal validity: 1) maturation confounds just because again, this question isn’t to be taken lightly, it could be a drastic change in somebody’s life as people get older, they ponder & think more, and 2) would be from the external validity: Researcher or Experimenter Effect Confounds just because saying or understanding the interpretation or answer to the question correctly or not plays a huge role in the way people would understand the meaning.
Reference
Stryker, R. Types of Data You Can Collect HDEV 302: Research Methods in Human Development. Course Skills Notes for Week 11.
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Suggestions to Reduce Health Disparities and Improve Social Justice
Suggestions to Reduce Health Disparities and Improve Social Justice
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Suggestions to Reduce Health Disparities and Improve Social Justice
The most recent global world crisis is the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic. The first case of the novel COVID-19 was reported in Wuhan, China in December 2019 (Cao et al., 2021). The disease later spread very fast infecting millions of people and bringing economic activities to almost a standstill as nations imposed strict movement measures to curb the spread of the disease. The coronavirus pandemic was also associated with severe healthcare and social effects. Today, nations are striving to revive from the adverse effects of COVID-19 crisis, which has led to a paradigm shift for health disparities and social justice. Health disparities refer to avoidable differences in the load of violence, injury, disease, or chances to achieve optimum health encountered by socially disadvantaged people (Louis et al., 2015). Usually, health disparities are a specific subgroup of health differences that significantly impact social justice since they are likely to rise from unintentional or intentional marginalization or discrimination and perpetuate vulnerability and social disadvantage. This paper discusses suggestions for positive change in healthcare disparities and social justice.
Eliminating health disparities should be our primary goal. We should be focused on changing the paradigm shift from centering on inequalities to targeting at sustainable health equity. One of the ways that can lead to a positive change in healthcare disparities and social justice is ensuring that health equity is achieved by ensuring the distribution of resources within the equity zone (Garay etal., 2017). An equity zone is a zone well-suited for the universal right to health. Setting limits within which the scale of inequalities is regarded as ethical is necessary for any attempt to estimate the degree of equitable distribution of market-generated disparities. Therefore, to ensure positive change in health disparities and social justice, such limits should be established following the need for human dignity and the limitations of excessive wealth.
Increasing public and provider awareness is another suggestion that may be used to help bring about positive change concerning health disparities and social justice (Bediako etal., 2020). When health care practitioners or the general public are uninformed of an issue with health disparities or do not comprehend the nature of the problem, it may be challenging to allocate resources toward finding a solution. Expanding efforts to promote public and provider knowledge of health inequalities may lead to fair resource allocation, eliminating health disparities and generating a positive shift in social justice.
Another suggestion for bringing about positive change in health disparities and social justice is to avoid unnecessary competition. Distinguishing winners and losers via competition, typically with a winner-take-all incentive structure, eventually produces a small number of winners and a large number of losers, leading to social inequality, which in turn creates and sustains health disparities (Chang & Fraser, 2017). For a positive change in health disparities and social justice, we should be focused on eliminating competition which tends to create negative power relationships and thus an antithesis to the goal of health equity. Besides, it is critical to ensure that we engage in constructive competition, ensuring that competition is efficient in controlled circumstances.
Moreover, expanding health coverage is another suggestion for positive change in social justice and health disparities (Ndugga & Artiga, 2021). Health insurance plays a role in determining whether individuals have access to the necessary medical care, how healthy they are, and where they receive medical care. Therefore, to guarantee that all people have access to proper medical care, it is essential to ensure that health insurance is made available to all people. Besides, health insurance coverage is very important to minority groups to change social justice positively and health disparities. It is necessary to make an effort to ensure that current sources of coverage, like Medicaid, are preserved while simultaneously trying to increase additional sources of coverage for individuals who do not have health insurance.
A population with better health needs less medical attention; therefore, providing equitable health care contributes to general improvements in the efficiency of healthcare systems. Inequalities in social and economic status, which have their origins in racism, are the fundamental cause of health disparities. Eliminating health disparities is crucial not only from the social justice and health equality point of view but also for enhancing the nation’s general health and economic success. Some suggestions for positive change in health disparities and social justice include; equal distribution of resources, increasing public and provider awareness, avoiding unnecessary competition, and expanding health coverage.
References
Bediako, S. M., & Griffith, D. M. (2020). Eliminating racial/ethnic health disparities: Reconsidering comparative approaches. UMBC Faculty Collection.
Cao, W., Chen, C., Li, M., Nie, R., Lu, Q., Song, D., … & Wang, X. (2021). Important factors affecting COVID-19 transmission and fatality in metropolises. Public health, 190, 817–823. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10198-020-01206-8Chang, W. C., & Fraser, J. H. (2017). Cooperate! A paradigm shift for health equity. International journal for equity in health, 16(1), 1–13.
Garay, J. E., & Chiriboga, D. E. (2017). A paradigm shift for socioeconomic justice and health: from focusing on inequalities to aiming at sustainable equity. Public Health, 149, 149-158.
Louis, J. M., Menard, M. K., & Gee, R. E. (2015). Racial and ethnic disparities in maternal morbidity and mortality. Obstetrics & Gynecology, 125(3), 690-694. doi: 10.1097/AOG.0000000000000704
Ndugga, N., & Artiga, S. (2021). Disparities in Health and Health Care: 5 Key Questions and Answers. KFF. Retrieved 29 September 2022, from https://www.kff.org/racial-equity-and-health-policy/issue-brief/disparities-in-health-and-health-care-5-key-question-and-answers/.