J E Glick | PubMed Health

PubMed1999

Public assistance receipt among immigrants and natives: how the unit of analysis affects research findings.

Differences between immigrant and native households in rates of welfare receipt depend on nativity differences in individual-level rates of receipt, in household size, in mean number of recipients in receiving households, and in household nativity composition. We present algebraic derivations of these relationships and use data from the 1990 and 1991 panels of the Survey of Income and Program Participation to examine empirically the extent to which levels of welfare receipt for immigrants and natives are sensitive to the use of household-, family-, or individual-level units of analysis or presentation. The findings show that nativity differences are statistically significant only at the level of larger units. The results also indicate that if immigrants and natives had identical living arrangements, immigrants' household-level receipt of Supplemental Security Income would significantly exceed natives' receipt even more than it actually does, but the nativity difference in receipt of Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) would reverse directions. Moreover, the level of AFDC receipt of immigrant households falls significantly below that of native households when native-born children living in households headed by immigrants are treated as if they were foreign born.

Adult↗

PubMed1998

Three-year-old boy presenting in thyrotoxicosis.

Thyrotoxicosis secondary to Graves' disease developed in a 3-year-old black boy with no previous history of thyroid disease. Thyrotoxicosis is a rare disorder of childhood that is characterized by an accelerated metabolism of body tissues which results from the stimulation of thyroid gland activity induced through a variety of autoantibodies. Historically, less than 5% of all incidents of Graves' disease occur in childhood, and recent studies show an incidence as low as 0.000001%. It is three to eight times more prevalent in females than in males and increases in incidence throughout childhood and adolescence. More than two thirds of childhood cases occur between the ages of 10 and 15 years. A review of the medical literature illustrates that less than 2% of hyperthyroid children in recorded cases are younger than 4 years. Records from Children's Hospital of Oklahoma in Oklahoma City support the unusual nature of this case, the hospital having seen only three children younger than 4 years requiring thyroid ablation therapy in 17 years. Physicians should consider Graves' disease in any child with clinical manifestations of hyperthyroidism, regardless of the age.

Adolescent↗