As the 2016 presidential election nears, both Republicans and Democrats have courted minority voters – a group that is growing in numbers and electoral clout. Black and Hispanic people make up the country’s two largest minority voting blocs and, as such, are especially important in close races. Various news agencies and other political observers have explored the question of whether a Republican can win the White House without winning over voters of color, who generally, according to a 2012 Gallup poll, identify as Democrats or independents.

Over the years, political scientists have studied the voting habits and behaviors of racial and ethnic minorities. One area of focus is voter turnout. While the minority population has increased – the Hispanic population alone grew more than 50 percent from 2000 to 2014 — voter turnout among minority groups does not seem to be keeping up. It has long lagged behind that of white voters. In 2014, for example, the voting rate for non-Hispanic white adults was 45.8 percent while the rate was 39.7 percent for black adults and 27 percent for Hispanics, a report from the U.S. Census Bureau shows. A decade previously, voting rates for those groups were 48.8 percent, 42 percent and 30.8 percent, respectively.

So, as political parties work to attract diverse voters, what factors influence whether they will show up at the polls on Election Day? Are minority populations more likely to vote if a candidate on the ballot is of the same race or ethnicity? Researcher Bernard L. Fraga of Indiana University looked at these issues in a 2015 study published in the American Journal of Political Science. For the study,“Candidates or Districts? Reevaluating the Role of Race in Voter Turnout,” Fraga took data collected from a nationwide voter registration database and combined it with data on congressional candidates. He analyzed congressional general and primary elections from 2006, 2008 and 2010 to gauge turnout among demographic groups.

Key findings from his study include:

• Having a political candidate of the same race or ethnicity on the ballot does not, by itself, prompt a larger voter turnout among minority groups.
• Turnout is often greater for minority voters when they live in a congressional district where their racial or ethnic group represents the majority of the citizen voting-age population (CVAP). For black and Hispanic voters specifically, turnouts are higher when each group makes up a larger portion of the electorate – regardless of the race of the candidates listed on the ballot.
• When no black congressional candidate is on the ballot, the general-election turnout for black voters is, on average, 40 percent in a district where black people make up 10 percent of the citizen voting-age population. The turnout is considerably higher — an average of 49.3 percent  — in a district where black people are 50 percent of the voting-age population.
• In the absence of a Hispanic candidate, the general-election turnout for Hispanic voters is 6.4 percentage points higher in a voting district where Hispanic people make up 40 percent of the voting-age population compared to a district where they comprise 10 percent of the voting-age population.

This study builds upon previous research to show that the racial and ethnic makeup of an electorate is linked to minority-voter turnout. The author recommends further research to explore the cause of the trend. He suggests that these results be considered when evaluating plans to change voting districts. “Considering [voter] participation as well as demographic representation calls for a new metric to judge what is fair when crafting district boundaries,” Fraga states. He also notes that as the nation’s minority populations grow, voting districts will become more diverse, which could result in future changes in political participation.

Related research: A 2015 study published in the American Journal of Political Science looks at how preregistration, or the registration of youth before they reach voting age, influences voter turnout. A 2015 study from the University of South Carolina suggests that the Democratic Party and civil-rights organizations can play an important role in mobilizing black voters if they strengthen their organizational features. A 2009 study by Harvard University offers insights about voter participation in presidential primaries and caucuses.

Keywords: black voters, Latino voters, Hispanic voters, elections, campaigns, race, voter ID, voter turnout, voter participation

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The issue: Some academics, policy makers and advocates hypothesize that contraceptives and abortion are considered substitutes. The theory goes: In a society with widely available, inexpensive contraception, women will not have as many abortions. Conversely, if contraception such as birth control pills, IUDs and condoms are difficult to obtain, women will have more abortions. If such a relationship does exist, there could be major consequences for population policy and foreign aid programs targeting women’s health.

An academic study worth reading: “Population Policy: Abortion and Modern Contraception Are Substitutes,” published in Demography, July 2016.

Study summary: Grant Miller, director of the Stanford Center for International Development and an associate professor at the Stanford University School of Medicine, teamed up with Christine Valente, a lecturer in economics at the University of Bristol, to study whether women in Nepal use abortion and modern contraceptives interchangeably. For their research, they examined an unusual policy change adopted in Nepal in 2004. That year, abortion was legalized, but there was no significant change made to the supply of modern contraceptives.

To understand Nepalese women’s reproductive behavior, Miller and Valente studied data collected during four waves of the Nepalese Demographic and Health Surveys. The surveys were conducted in 1996 and 2001 – before the policy change – and then in 2006 and 2011 – after the change. The analysis involved a sample of 32,098 women.

Key findings of the study:

• Each new legal abortion provider in a woman’s district of residence was associated with a 2.6 percent decrease in the likelihood of using modern contraception.
• Each new legal abortion provider was associated with a 2.2 percent reduction in the odds of women undergoing sterilization. Centers have no effect on male sterilization, however.
• The decrease in contraception use was driven primarily by decreased usage of reversible birth control methods such as injections. To a smaller extent, there was a decrease in the use of condoms and birth control pills.
• The authors note that their estimates “provide evidence of true substitution between use of modern contraceptives and abortion.”

Helpful resources for reporters writing about this issue:

• The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) tracks abortion and collects information about the characteristics of women who have obtained legal abortions since 1969.
• The CDC also tracks the number of women using contraceptives and the most commonly used contraceptives. It also offers reports on rates of unintended pregnancy.
• The Guttmacher Institute offers a variety of public reports and datasets related to reproductive health, including surveys of unmarried adults’ attitudes about contraception and surveys of abortion patients.
• The United Nations’ Population Division annually estimates and projects contraceptive prevalence among populations around the world.

Related research:

• A 2012 study from scholars at Washington University in St. Louis found a reduction in abortions and teen birth rates when women received free birth control as a part of the Contraceptive CHOICE Project.
• A 2015 study published in Health Affairs found that the federal Affordable Care Act reduced out-of-pocket costs for multiple types of birth control.
• A 2014 study by researchers from J.P. Morgan and Williams College found that early access to birth control can reduce the likelihood that a woman will live in poverty.

Keywords: birth control, family planning, fertility, abortion clinic, reproductive rights, pro-choice

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The issue: More than 29.7 million people in the United States live in a “food desert,” a low-income area where a substantial number of people lack access to a supermarket, according to a 2012 report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Residents often don’t have a car but must travel a mile or more to reach a store that sells fruit, vegetables and other whole foods. Policymakers have postulated that limited access to fresh, nutritious foods may contribute to obesity – a health crisis confronting communities nationwide.

An academic study worth reading: “Diet And Perceptions Change With Supermarket Introduction in A Food Desert, But Not Because of Supermarket Use” published in Health Affairs, 2015.

Study summary: Researchers from the RAND Corporation, the University of Illinois and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine studied two low-income neighborhoods in the Pittsburgh area. They gathered baseline data in 2011, when both neighborhoods were food deserts. They gathered follow-up data from 831 households in 2014, a year after a supermarket opened in one of the two neighborhoods. In both 2011 and 2014, researchers asked study participants to recall the food and beverages they had consumed over the past 24 hours. They also asked questions about such things as body mass index (BMI) and food-purchasing practices.

Key takeaways from the study:

• Residents of the neighborhood where the grocery store opened consumed fewer calories and less added sugar. Meanwhile, consumption of calories and sugar remained the same or increased in the neighborhood that did not get a supermarket.
• On average, residents of the neighborhood with the supermarket ate 222 fewer calories per day after the supermarket opened compared to when they had no supermarket.
• After the grocery store opened, there was no significant difference between the two neighborhoods in terms of residents’ consumption of fruit, vegetables and whole grains.
• The overall diet quality of residents in the neighborhood that did not have a supermarket declined between 2011 and 2014. The diet quality of residents in the neighborhood where a supermarket opened did not change significantly.
• Residents in the neighborhood with the supermarket reported higher neighborhood satisfaction and better access to health food in 2014 compared to 2011. There was no change for residents in the other neighborhood.
• Residents’ average BMI remained the same in the neighborhood with the supermarket. The average BMI increased in the other neighborhood, but the difference was not significant.

Helpful resources for reporters writing about this issue:

• A 2012 report from the USDA’s Economic Research Service, “Access to Affordable and Nutritious Food: Updated Estimates of Distance to Supermarkets Using 2010 Data,” examines census tracts, the location of supermarkets and households with automobiles.
• The USDA’s Economic Research Service has created an interactive map that allows journalists to identify parts of the country that lack access to supermarkets, supercenters and other sources of healthy food.
• A number of local and national non-profit groups are working to improve food access in low-income communities across the U.S. For example, Food Desert Action in the Chicago area introduced a mobile produce market. The First Nations Development Institute awards grants to Native American organizations that help improve food access for indigenous children.

Other research:

• A 2015 study by researchers from Johns Hopkins University, “Healthy versus Unhealthy Suppliers in Food Desert Neighborhoods: A Network Analysis of Corner Stores’ Food Supplier Networks,” focuses on foods sold in corner stores in low-income areas of Baltimore.
• A 2012 study by Michigan State University researchers examines how the supply of fruits and vegetables in low-income areas of Detroit affect the demand for such foods.
• A 2012 study by the RAND Corporation finds no relationship between greater access to healthy food and improved diet or decreased BMIs among California youth.

Keywords: junk food, urban health, healthy food, food supply, food access

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Many Americans might be surprised to learn that Afghanistan has a larger percentage of women in its national legislative body than the United States does, according to an analysis from the World Bank. In 2015, 19.4 percent of our members of Congress were female compared to 28 percent of Afghanistan’s national legislators. A 2015 report from the Pew Research Center shows that the U.S. ranked 83^rd of 137 countries for its share of women holding office in a national legislature in 2014.

Some scholars credit gender quotas for helping improve the representation of women in politics in various countries, including Afghanistan. Since Argentina passed a law in the 1990s aimed at advancing women’s representation, dozens of countries have taken the controversial step of adopting gender quotas — policies requiring that a certain portion of political candidates or legislators be female, according to a 2015 study published in Legislative Studies Quarterly. That study shows that the number of nations with gender quotas increased from nine in 1995 to 43 in 2010. Drude Dahlerup, a political science professor at Stockholm University in Sweden, has written about the pros and cons of electoral quotas, an affirmative action strategy that is not used in the U.S.

While quotas have been successful in ensuring more women enter their country’s legislatures, little research has been done to determine whether this type of reform helps women become elected to leadership posts within their political parties at a higher rate. On one hand, some scholars hypothesize that quotas increase the number of women in political party leadership by expanding the number of female candidates who are eligible for such posts, and also by mobilizing support for a female leader. In contrast, other scholars have hypothesized that having “quota women” could lead to “stigmatization and backlash effects”  that could undermine attempts to place more women in leadership roles.

A 2016 study published in the American Political Science Review examines this issue. For the study, “Gender Quotas and Women’s Political Leadership,” Diana Z. O’Brien of Indiana University and Johanna Rickne of the Research Institute for Industrial Economics looked at 15 years of data on local leadership appointments in Sweden’s largest political party. They focused on political leadership before and after the Swedish Social Democratic Party imposed a gender quota on 290 municipal branches of the party in 1994.

The study’s key findings include:

• Having a gender quota helped women obtain party leadership positions. The quota “both immediately and permanently improved women’s access to leadership positions in municipalities where fewer women had previously held elected office.”
• Having a quota did not seem to influence women’s chances of maintaining a leadership post once they acquired it.
• Having a gender quota strengthened the pool of qualified women eligible for party leadership roles. More qualified, better educated women entered politics after the quota was implemented relative to the number of qualified men.
• The quota did not increase the diversity of women in leadership roles with respect to age, education or income. Overall, the generational, educational and income levels of women in power remained unchanged before and after the quota.

This research helps dispel the myth that legislative gender quotas have a backlash effect on women obtaining higher positions of power in their political parties, at least in Sweden. There, quotas not only increased the number of women in legislatures, but also seemed to further promote women into leadership roles in the broader political system. The authors of the study suggest that future research should build upon this study by determining whether other countries and political systems have experienced similar outcomes.

Related research: A 2015 study in Political Psychology, “Emotional, Sensitive, and Unfit for Office? Gender Stereotype Activation and Support for Female Candidates,” analyzes the likelihood that voters assign gender-related stereotypes to political candidates. A 2014 study in the Journal of Politics, “How the Gender of U.S. Senators influences People’s Understanding and Engagement in Politics,” suggests that women are more involved in politics and have more political knowledge when they are represented by women in the U.S. Senate.

Keywords: women voters, female candidate, women in politics, political participation, Voluntary Political Party Quota, quotaProject, affirmative action

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Burns are one of the leading causes of accidental injury among children. Every day, U.S. emergency rooms treat more than 300 children under the age of 19 for burn-related injuries, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But while touching a scorching pot on the stove or spilling hot liquid can cause burns that are common childhood injuries, burns also can indicate abuse in the home.

Being able to differentiate between an accidental burn and a deliberate one is sometimes difficult. But it is critically important for medical professionals and child protection workers to be able to recognize such signs of abuse, especially when a child is too young to communicate. The U.S. Department of Justice has reported that the majority of children who suffer intentional burns are under the age of 2.

Researchers have tried to identify features that distinguish deliberate burns from accidental burns, including scalds. There are not, however, many published studies that attempt to describe the burns of children who have been referred to child protection workers for an investigation into possible maltreatment. A group of scholars from the United Kingdom reviewed 20 small studies – primarily case studies — involving a total of 73 children to try to identify patterns and similarities. Their 2014 published study, “Contact, Cigarette and Flame Burns in Physical Abuse: A Systematic Review,” found, among other things, that most non-scald burns were from household items such as cigarettes and irons and appeared in multiple places on children’s bodies.

More recently, another research team sought more information about the characteristics of intentional burns. That team — six researchers from three medical schools — examined data on U.S. children aged 10 years old and younger who had been referred to one of 20 identified child protection teams between January 2010 and April 2011. Data was collected on a total of 215 children through the Examining Siblings To Recognize Abuse (ExSTRA) network. The resulting study, titled “Children with Burns Referred for Child Abuse Evaluation: Burn Characteristics and Co-existent Injuries,” was published in May 2016 in the journal Child Abuse & Neglect. 

Among the key findings:

• The median age of children with burns who were referred to child protection workers was 20 months. Nearly 56 percent were boys.
• The vast majority had public insurance. Almost two-thirds were racial or ethnic minorities.
• For about 86 percent of these children, burns were the primary reason for their referrals. Burns were secondary injuries for about 14 percent.
• The most common burn types were scalds (52.6 percent) and contact burns (27.6 percent). The most common causative agent was hot water.
• Burns that did not have adequate explanations – or any explanation at all — and burns that followed a history of other burns were significantly more likely to be associated with abuse than one-time burns or burns with an adequate explanation. Physical abuse was deemed likely in 70 percent of cases for which there was no explanation and in 62.5 percent of cases with an additional burn history.
• Burns from hot water, burns sustained from being immersed in hot liquid and burns from unknown sources were more likely to be associated with abuse. In contrast, burns that were not likely to be associated with abuse were burns from hot food and beverages or a radiator or burns that resulted from touching hot objects.
• Bilateral burns, burns of the skin’s full thickness and burns that covered 10 percent or more of a child’s body were significantly more likely to be associated with abuse.
• Burns that coincided with other injuries were significantly more likely to be associated with abuse. Researchers deemed physical abuse likely in 88.2 percent of cases in which a bone fracture accompanied a burn.
• About 55 percent of children with burns who were referred to child protection workers underwent a skeletal survey — a series of X-rays of all the bones in the body. The skeletal survey identified a new injury in 16 percent of those children. Skeletal surveys found new injuries in 25 percent of youngsters aged 36 months to 60 months and in 23 percent of babies 6 months old and younger.

Related research: A 2014 study published in Pediatrics, “Income Inequality and Child Maltreatment in the United States,” considers the link between income inequality and child abuse. A 2013 study published in JAMA Pediatrics, “Violence, Crime, and Abuse Exposure in a National Sample of Children and Youth: An Update,” offers data on trends related to child abuse and childhood violence. A 2013 study in the International Journal of Public Health, “The Current Prevalence of Child Sexual Abuse Worldwide: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis,” suggests that an estimated 9 percent of girls and 3 percent of boys worldwide are the victims of forced sexual intercourse.

Keywords: maltreatment, cigarette burns, burn pattern, children protective services, CPS, physical abuse, trauma

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Black and Hispanic adults historically have been overrepresented in the U.S. prison population. In 2016, almost 38 percent of inmates who were in the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons were black. About 34 percent of inmates, regardless of race, identified as having a Hispanic ethnicity. Meanwhile, 2015 data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows that 13.3 percent of the population was black and that 17.6 percent nationwide were Hispanic.

Researchers have tried to understand the reasons behind this disparity. Some of the research has focused on how poverty, a lack of education and other social forces have contributed to the problem. Prior research also has looked at whether some racial and ethnic groups are more likely to commit certain crimes and whether some groups are more likely to face arrest than others. For example, a 2006 study published in the journal Criminology suggests that the majority of people who delivered heroin, methamphetamine, ecstasy and powder cocaine in Seattle were white while most of those who delivered crack cocaine were black. Yet 64 percent of all of the people arrested for delivering one of these five drugs was black.

A 2016 study published in Criminology looks at another possible factor contributing to higher percentages of black and Hispanic individuals going to prison. Two Harvard University scholars interviewed 59 state judges in one Northeastern state to try to understand how their decision-making processes may cause or support racial disparities in the criminal justice system. For the study, titled “How Judges Think About Racial Disparities: Situational Decision-Making in the Criminal Justice System,” the authors sought to better understand what judges think of these disparities and what, if anything, they do to address them at key points within the judicial process. The authors supplemented in-depth interviews with the judges with interviews of state prosecutors and defenders and by observing arraignments, pretrial motions, plea hearings, jury selections, jury trials, bench trials and parole hearings. Forty-two of the 59 judges who were interviewed were white and 10 were black.

Their key findings include:

• Most of the judges interviewed (76 percent) said they thought that racial disparities were the result of a combination of factors, including discriminatory treatment by court officials or police officers and higher rates of offending among black and Hispanic people.
• Almost a quarter of judges exclusively blamed factors outside the criminal justice arena – the criminal offenders themselves and problems that arise before offenders come into contact with criminal justice systems.
• Many judges said they make decisions based on preconceived notions about the practicality of certain treatments for defendants of a certain race or socioeconomic class.
• Judges use two types of strategy – interventionist and noninterventionist — for addressing the problem of racial disparity. A judge using a noninterventionist strategy may consider his or her own differential treatment of the defendant but will not try to address and correct differential treatment by others in the judicial system. A judge using an interventionist strategy tries to correct for differential treatment that a minority defendant may have faced at some point within the judicial system.
• Judges reported using a noninterventionist strategy most often. For example, 75 percent of judges reported using a noninterventionist strategy at arraignment. More than 85 percent reported using nonintervention strategies at both plea hearings and sentencing.

This study indicates that even when judges acknowledge and try to account for their own implicit biases, they still may contribute unintentionally to racial disparities. That’s because “judges’ widely-used noninterventionist strategies many render them ineffective at combating disparities,” the authors state. Because this study analyzed only the opinions and strategies of a few dozen judges in one state, it is difficult to extrapolate these results for judges across the country as a whole. But the study gives an informative snapshot into a cross-section of judges’ decision making in a Northeastern state that can be built upon for further research.

Related research: A 2015 study published in the Journal of Criminal Justice examines whether judges treat female defendants differently than male defendants at key points in the criminal justice process. A 2015 study by a Harvard University political scientist looks at how a judge’s race affects how his or her decisions are handled during the appeals process. A 2016 study in Criminology explores the demographic changes that have occurred within the nation’s prison population over the past several decades and the reasons behind those changes.

Keywords: incarceration, imprisonment, punishment, poverty, class, demographic, jail, demographics, prison boom, prison population

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In recent years, policymakers, scholars and the media have focused on the plight of young men in the U.S. who have few skills and little education. Black and Hispanic young men in particular face tough challenges, considering they are more likely to have dropped out of high school than white men and less likely to have jobs. For the first quarter of 2016, the unemployment rate for black men aged 20 to 24 years was 16.6 percent, on average, compared to 11 percent for Hispanic men, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. The unemployment rate for all men in that age group averaged about 10 percent – double that of all men 25 years old and older.

As researchers and other stakeholders try to understand the factors that may improve or worsen the problem, some have looked to employment trends among young women. Welfare reform policies enacted in the 1990s, for example, have resulted in substantial increases in employment among low-skilled women with children. A 2002 working paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research, “Evaluating Welfare Reform in the United States,” offers a review of the economics literature on welfare reform efforts, including programs that require adults receiving certain types of public assistance to get and keep jobs.

A 2016 study published in the journal Demography examines how welfare reform initiatives have affected the employment of men – especially young men who have a high school diploma or less. Lincoln H. Groves, a fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Institute for Research on Poverty, used workforce data from 1989 to 2002 to analyze trends among black and white men of different ages. For his study, titled “Welfare Reform and Labor Force Exit by Young, Low-Skilled Single Males,” Groves separated men into two groups — a group of “young” men between the ages of 16 and 29 and a group of older men, aged 30 to 49.

Groves also looked at how rising employment for single mothers with low education levels impacted employment for single women without children who also had low levels of education. Single, childless women of both races were divided into two age groups – a group of “young” women ages 16-29 and a group of women with a wider range of ages, 16-44.

The study’s key findings include:

• As single mothers with a high school diploma or less found jobs, young, single men with the same education level left the workforce. For every 10 percentage-point increase in labor force participation among single mothers, there was a decrease of approximately 2.8 percentage points among single, young men.
• The decline was driven by young, white males. The number of young, single, low-skilled white men in the labor force dropped by approximately 3.7 percentage points for every 10 percentage-point increase in low-skilled, single mothers getting jobs.
• There was no apparent decline among older men of either race.
• There is no evidence that single, childless women of either age group or race left the workforce as a result of welfare reforms.

This study suggests that welfare reform policies that were intended to increase the number of low-skilled, single mothers in the workforce inadvertently led to a decline of young, low-skilled, single men in the workforce. Groves notes that less-educated men who do not attend school or have jobs are more likely to commit crimes and less likely to form stable relationships with their partners. “These byproducts have contributed greatly to the long-term increases in incarceration rates in the United States, as well as the decline of stable, nuclear working-class families,” he states. He says the study “supports the calls by many scholars to increase work incentives to other segments of low-wage workers.”

Related research: A 2013 study in Demography, “Examining the Antecedents of U.S. Nonmarital Fatherhood,” looks at the factors that contribute to men having children outside of marriage. A 2016 working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research, “Effects of Welfare Reform on Women’s Voting Participation,” suggests that welfare reforms in the 1990s increased the likelihood that low-income women vote.

Keywords: labor supply, unemployment, high school dropout, low-skill worker, GED, single mom, poverty, minimum wage

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From the NSA’s surveillance program to FDA drug approval and from the use of police body cameras to fracking, many public policies that are frequently in the news are regulations, developed by federal or state agencies based on enacted legislation. The processes these agencies use to develop regulations vary. One thing that is common, however, is that these rule-making processes often involve the public — notifying the public about a proposed change, collecting their feedback and using that input to shape and finalize new rules.

Journalists who cover public policy will need to scrutinize the processes through which regulations are made. That means taking a hard look at the efforts governmental bodies make to engage the public, as those efforts may differ from state to state and among federal agencies. Journalists also will need to scrutinize the amount and quality of the information that is made available to the public — information that citizens need in order to understand the changes that are being proposed and form opinions about how these changes will affect them and their communities.

Academic scholars have studied public engagement in various government contexts. Some studies highlight shortcomings, including barriers that prevent or discourage members of the public from participating in the rule-making process. A 2014 study led by a University of Michigan researcher, for example, discusses the ways that “agency-led public participation opportunities, while extensive, may be experienced as confusing, perfunctory, discriminatory, and burdensome.”

A 2016 study published in the Review of Policy Research, “Public Information and Regulatory Processes: What the Public Knows and Regulators Decide” adds to the body of knowledge on this topic by examining the rule-making processes in five states: California, Colorado, Michigan, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. A group of three researchers, led by Deserai A. Crow of the University of Colorado Boulder, sought to better understand the role the public plays in forming regulations in these states. The authors interviewed regulators and analyzed regulatory documents and media coverage of regulation changes to gauge how much and what types of information are disseminated to the public and how much feedback the public offers. This study looks specifically at the processes the five states used to set regulations in three areas: fracking, concentrated animal feeding operations and renewable energy production.

Among their key findings:

• Regulatory agencies do a poor job of informing the public and soliciting comments from broad swaths of the public. Regulators reported focusing their outreach efforts on environmental organizations and people who had participated in previous rule-making processes. E-mail listservs were the primary method used to disseminate information to these two groups.
• Regulatory agencies do a poor job reaching out to media organizations to get their help notifying the public about proposed regulations. Regulators noted that the media is disinterested in rule-making processes because of their technical nature.
• When government agencies invite specific stakeholders to participate in the early stages of the decision-making process – before inviting the general public — it seems to result in lower levels of public involvement. The public’s feedback, which generally is collected during formal comment periods later in the process, also “might prove less important to regulatory decision makers who have already worked with organized stakeholders to reach consensus on specific aspects of the rule-making.”
• The public was more likely to get involved after the media reported on a big-picture story about fracking, renewable energy and animal waste pollution than after the media reported about the regulation-making process specifically.
• There was no observed pattern related to government transparency and citizen participation. California was the most transparent in terms of its processes while Michigan was the least transparent. However, there was no significant difference in how frequently citizens participated in regulatory rule-making among the five states that were studied.

This study highlights some of the shortcomings of regulatory agencies. “While all agencies perform their expected minimal functions of publicizing rule-making in their state regulatory registers, the data from interviews suggest that agencies are not focused on providing information to encourage public participation in rule-making,” the authors state. The authors suggest that future research examine whether public input or input from stakeholders such as environmental organizations is more likely to result in changes to regulation.

Related research: A 2015 study published in Science, Technology & Human Values, “Maximizing the Policy Impacts of Public Engagement: A European Study,” considers ways to measure the impact of public engagement in science and technology policy. A 2013 study in the American Review of Public Administration, “Citizen Input in the Budget Process: When Does It Matter Most?,” examines how public participation influences organizational performance. A 2011 paper from Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, titled “Modern Citizenship or Policy Dead End? Evaluating the Need for Public Participation in Science Policy Making, and Why Public Meetings May Not Be the Answer,” questions the usefulness of consensus conferences and other forms of public meetings as a way to improve long‐term planning related to science and its applications. A 1999 study in the Journal of Forestry, “The Public Comment Process: What Do Citizens Contribute to National Forest Management?,” looks at how public input can help government officials determine what the public needs.

Keywords: public information, public comment, public input, public engagement, public meetings, open records laws, regulation

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Each election season, political lawn signs dot neighborhoods nationwide. Long regarded as a way to increase the name recognition of a given candidate, the use of lawn signs as a campaign tactic more than doubled between 1984 and 2008, according to a 2013 study published in Political Behavior. Each year, many local news reports chronicle the use — and abuse — of this relatively inexpensive form of election advertising. Some communities have lengthy rules for what election signage should look like and where it can be placed. Controversy often erupts when a candidate’s signs suddenly vanish from front yards and public roadways. Occasionally, someone is arrested and charged with stealing campaign signs.

While lawn signs are widely used in modern elections, their effectiveness has not been as widely studied as other forms of campaigning, such as door-to-door canvassing, hand-held placards and telephone calls. A study published in Electoral Studies in March 2016 sought to fill a gap in knowledge. The study, “The Effect of Lawn Signs on Vote Outcomes: Results from Four Randomized Field Experiments,” provides what the authors conclude is the most comprehensive research on lawn sign effectiveness to date. The six researchers, led by Donald P. Green of Columbia University, worked with four campaigns in different electoral contexts to conduct four separate experiments. The experiments, together, focused on a total of 376 voting precincts in New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

The study’s findings include:

• After pooling the results of the four experiments and examining their averages, it appears that lawn signs raise vote shares, on average, by slightly more than 1 percentage point.
• Based on pooled results, lawn signs are “on par with other low-tech campaign tactics such as direct mail that generate … effects that tend to be small in magnitude.”
• Signs, in some scenarios, do not appear to be as effective when they make reference to a specific political party or ideology.

The results from each of the four individual experiments were not, on their own, statistically significant. But the researchers were able to draw general conclusions after pooling the average results of the four experiments. While lawn signs appear to have a modest effect on voting outcomes, they could, theoretically, provide an edge in certain tight elections. The authors suggest that future studies use a larger sample size and look more closely at how this campaign strategy might influence voter behavior in neighboring precincts.

Related research: A 2009 study published in Electoral Studies, titled “Street Fight: The Impact of a Street Sign Campaign on Voter Turnout,” examines the relationship between street sign campaigns and voter mobilization. A 2000 study by scholars at Yale University, “The Effects of Canvassing, Telephone Calls, and Direct Mail on Voter Turnout: A Field Experiment,” analyzes nonpartisan, get-out-the-vote messages to determine which type has the greatest influence on voter turnout. A collection of research compiled by Journalist’s Resource looks at how voters are affected by negative political advertisements. A 2015 study, “In a Different Voice? Explaining the Use of Men and Women as Voice-Over Announcers in Political Advertising,” compares voice-overs used in TV ads.

Keywords: lawn signs, yard signs, campaign signs, election signs, signage, campaign tactic, placards

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The oil market in 2016 looks very different than it did even five years earlier. Oil prices dropped dramatically, and the United States, formerly a large oil importer, is now producing enough oil to be on the cusp of eliminating its net oil imports within the next decade. U.S. domestic crude oil production is up more than 80 percent since 2008. In 2014, the U.S. became the world’s top producer of petroleum and other liquid fuels, outpacing traditional petroleum giants Russia and Saudi Arabia, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

As the nation produces more of its own energy, some political and business groups have pressed to open up more areas in coastal waters to offshore drilling. While President Obama approved new oil and gas drilling off the nation’s coastline in 2010, he rescinded that decision after the BP oil spill, the largest marine oil spill in U.S. history. In early 2016, however, the Obama administration is expected to release a proposal that would allow oil and gas drilling in federal waters near Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia. While the governors of those states support the plan, Virginia’s lieutenant governor has voiced concern about how local tourism, commercial fisheries and military training could be affected. Meanwhile, several TV celebrities and dozens of coastal leaders spent a day in January 2016 lobbying against the change.

Two researchers sought to better understand how the U.S. public, as a whole, feels about offshore drilling. Deep Mukherjee and Mohammad Arshad Rahman, economics professors at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, analyzed the responses given during 10 nationwide surveys conducted by two reputable organizations between 2009 and 2012 — before, during and after the BP oil spill. Their April 2016 study, published in Energy Policy, looks at how various factors shape public opinion and influence an individual’s willingness to support or oppose offshore drilling. The study, “To Drill or Not to Drill? An Econometric Analysis of U.S. Public Opinion,” also considers how public opinion changes following a disaster such as the BP spill.

Among the study’s key findings:

• Public support declined in the wake of the BP spill, but that reduction in support lasted only 18 months. Once that time period had passed, support for offshore drilling rose and was no longer significantly lower than the level of support had been before the oil spill,
• Factors associated with support for drilling in U.S. waters include a larger household income, being an older age and living in an oil-rich state.
• Those who oppose further offshore drilling are more likely to have a higher education, care more about the environment, and be female.
• Republicans were more likely to support further offshore drilling while Democrats were more likely to oppose it.

Knowing the characteristics of both opponents and supporters of offshore drilling is helpful for policymakers who advocate either position. Studying the demographics of those who support and those who oppose offshore drilling can help policymakers be strategic about how they advocate certain policies regarding the environment and offshore drilling. “From a policy making perspective, it is not only crucial to determine the potential impact of energy related decisions on the economy, it is also necessary to recognize whether implementation of a set of strategies are welcome by the citizens in general,” the authors state.

Related research: In 2015, Journalist’s Resource compiled a collection of studies that analyzed the societal effects of gas prices, including effects on health, driving patterns, economics and policy. A 2013 study published in Energy Policy, “The Effect of the 2010 Gulf Oil Spill on Public Attitudes Toward Offshore Oil Drilling and Wind Development,” explores attitudes related to offshore energy. A 2010 paper from scholars at Brooklyn College and CUNY, “Lessons from the Twin Mega-Crises:  The Financial Meltdown and the BP Oil Spill,” looks at how future government policies may help avoid a similar crisis.

Keywords: BP oil spill, Deepwater Horizon, offshore drilling, oil development, fossil fuels, energy, oil extraction

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In the year 2050, there will be 83.7 million people in the United States who are 65 years old or older, according to estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau. That’s nearly twice as many senior citizens as there were in 2012. By 2050, the elderly population – especially those who are 85 years old and older – is predicted to start growing at a faster rate than the working age population. Such a dynamic could have significant implications for the U.S. in numerous areas beyond social security.

One area that will be impacted most is health care. The elderly receive more medical attention than any other U.S. demographic. Senior citizens made up 13 percent of the U.S. population but accounted for 34 percent of healthcare-related spending in 2010, a report from the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services shows. In 2010, healthcare spending amounted to $18,424 per person for people aged 65 and older – about five times as much as per-person spending for children ($3,628) and triple what was spent on working-age individuals ($6,125). Much of the elderly’s medical costs are paid for by the government. Almost all Americans who are 65 years old or older are eligible for Medicare, the federal government’s health insurance program. Some seniors also qualify for Medicaid, a government insurance program that specifically targets low-income families and individuals. Medicare spending alone totaled $618.7 billion in 2014.

A group of researchers led by economist Mariacristina De Nardi of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago sought to better understand how much money goes toward medical care for Americans aged 65 and older. Their 2015 report, titled “Medical Spending of the U.S. Elderly,” was completed for the National Bureau of Economic Research as part of the agency’s working paper series. The report is based on data collected between 1996 and 2010 through the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey.

Some of their key findings are:

• The government pays for 65 percent of the elderly’s medical expenses.
• Medical expenses for the elderly more than double between the ages of 70 and 90. The average amount spent on medical care for an American in his or her 90s exceeds $25,000 annually, a cost based primarily on nursing home costs.
• The poor use more medical goods and services than the rich and a larger portion of their expenses are financed by the government.
• Medical expenses before death can be high but do not appear to be a major driver of increased medical spending in the U.S. Medical spending over the last year of life averages $59,100, of which 71 percent is covered by Medicare and 10 percent is covered by Medicaid.

Related research: A 2014 Census Bureau report makes projections about and analyzes the effects of the aging population. A 2015 report in Political Analysis, “Explaining Systematic Bias and Nontransparency in U.S. Social Security Administration Forecasts,” examines whether the Social Security Administration’s forecasts make Social Security trust funds look healthier than they are.

Keywords: senior citizens, elderly, Medicare, Medicaid, medical care, nursing home, medication

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The United States has the second-highest prison population rate in the world. Of every 100,000 people in the U.S., 698 are held in penal institutions – a rate that falls behind only the small African country of Seychelles, where 799 of every 100,000 people are imprisoned, according to a February 2016 report from the International Centre for Prison Studies in London. Worldwide, an estimated 10.35 million to more than 11 million people are imprisoned. The U.S. has the largest prison population with 2.2 million people in prison or jail.

This segment of the U.S. population has experienced explosive growth during the past several decades. A 2014 report from the National Research Council shows that, since the mid-1970s, the rate of incarceration has more than quadrupled. In 1972, 161 of every 100,000 U.S. residents were incarcerated. The growth of the nation’s penal system and higher rates of incarceration are primarily the result of harsher sentencing policies, which increased the likelihood of imprisonment as well as the length of prison sentences.

As prison populations swelled, the size and number of prisons were not the only factors that changed. The growing imprisonment rate also has changed the demographics of the nation’s prisons. A 2016 study published in Criminology, “How the U.S. Prison Boom Has Changed the Age Distribution of the Prison Population,” explores the nature of those demographic changes as well as the reasons behind them. The authors — Lauren C. Porter of the University of Maryland; Shawn D. Bushway and Hui-Shien Tsao of the University at Albany, SUNY; and Herbert L. Smith of the University of Pennsylvania – looked specifically at the demographics of state prisons, which hold the majority of U.S. prisoners. They analyzed data collected by six waves of the Survey of Inmates in State Correctional Facilities between 1974 and 2004.

Their key findings include:

• Prisoners have gotten older since the beginning of the prison boom. In 1974, 16 percent of prisoners were 40 years old or older. In 2004, the proportion had more than doubled to 33 percent.
• The average age of prisoners dropped between 1974 and 1979 but then steadily rose from then until 2004. In 1974, the average age was 29.7 compared to 35.2 in 2004.
• The shift in prisoner age is largely due to changes related to the age of individuals when they enter prison. This finding “contradicts popular wisdom for the growth and aging of the correctional population, which often points to a period effect driven by harsher sentence lengths during the 1980s and 1990s.”

The authors note that it is difficult to overstate the significance of these demographic shifts. Because a large portion of men have their first child sometime between the ages of 25 and 34, the age-distribution trend would indicate that more children are growing up while their fathers are behind bars. The authors also suggest that policies focusing on reducing sentence lengths may not address the aging issue. They point to a 2013 study from the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics that shows that the average age of people convicted of felonies in the U.S. rose by 4 years between 1990 and 2009. The current study’s findings “should lead both researchers and policy makers to reconsider the consensus that changes in the prison population are a result of increased sentence lengths,” the authors state.

Related research: A 2015 study from a scholar at Cornell University considers the impact of paternal incarceration on children’s social and behavioral development. A 2015 collection of research examines prisoners’ relationships with detention center staff. A 2014 study published in Criminal Justice Policy Review explores whether reductions in mental hospital populations have influenced imprisonment rates.

Keywords: incarceration, imprisonment, prison growth, jail, demographics, prison boom, prison population

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Motor vehicle crashes are the No. 1 cause of death among teenagers in the United States, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And while teens tend to drive less often than their parents and most other groups, they are much more likely to be involved in a car crash or fatal accident. Drivers between the ages of 16 and 19 are almost three times more likely to be in a fatal crash than drivers who are 20 and older. In certain circumstances, risks for younger drivers are even higher. In 2013, most crashes that resulted in the death of a teenager occurred between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m, according to an analysis from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. A study published in 2000 in The Journal of the American Medical Association indicates that the risk of fatal injury for teen drivers rises with the number of passengers they have.

To try to improve the safety of younger drivers, many states have implemented Graduated Driver Licensing (GDL) systems, which allow novice drivers to gradually earn driving privileges as they gain experience. In May 2010, New Jersey became the first state to require drivers under the age of 21 to display decals on their vehicles so they are easily identified. Policymakers in New Jersey had hoped that if drivers with learner permits and intermediate licenses had red, reflective decals affixed to their license plates, police could spot them more easily, and that might encourage young drivers to follow traffic laws more closely. A 2013 study suggests that the decals helped prevent injury among young drivers. In the one year after the law took effect, there was a 9 percent drop in the police-reported crash rate and a 14 percent increase in the number of citations issued to young drivers who had violated the rules of the state’s GDL system.

But what about the longer-term impacts of the decal requirement? To answer that question, a group of researchers examined driver license records as well as data from crashes that occurred in New Jersey between January 1, 2006 and June 30, 2012. The research team, led by Allison E. Curry of the Center for Injury Research and Prevention at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, focused on intermediate drivers – those who are allowed to drive without adult supervision but are restricted from higher-risk behaviors such as nighttime driving and carrying multiple passengers. The resulting study, titled “Long-Term Changes in Crash Rates After Introduction of a Graduated Driver Licensing Decal Provision,” was published in 2015 in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

The study’s findings include:

• In the two-year period after the decal was introduced, the adjusted crash rate for intermediate drivers was 9.5 percent lower than it had been during the four years prior to the decals being introduced.
• Over the study period, the average monthly rate of police-reported crashes declined. It fell from 142.6 per 10,000 intermediate drivers before the decal program’s implementation to 126.5 crashes per 10,000 afterward.
• The amount of the reduction in the crash rate varied by driver age. For example, the crash rate was 13.3 percent lower among 17-year-olds and 8.5 percent lower among 19-year-olds.
• Self-reported compliance with the decal rule is “less than ideal.” Forty percent of intermediate drivers reported that they “always” display their decals.

The authors’ findings suggest that while the decal rule is linked to a two-year decline in the crash rate for intermediate drivers, it is unclear whether other states would see similar results. The authors suggest that future studies should seek to better understand the causal relationship between the decals and the lower crash rates. Future research also should examine the experiences of states that are experimenting with decals being used by drivers on a voluntary basis.

The authors note that this research was funded by State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company but that the agency was not involved in designing or conducting the study; collecting, managing or interpreting the data; or preparing the manuscript.

Related research: A 2015 study published in Injury Prevention looks at how New Jersey’s decal program has impacted drivers with learner permits. A 2014 research roundup offers a collection of studies related to distracted driving and texting while driving. A 2014 study published in the American Journal of Public Health considers how texting bans affect motor vehicle deaths among individuals aged 15 to 21.

Keywords: teen driver, teenager, Kyleigh’s Law, Graduated Driver License

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Presidential candidates are putting more and more money into campaign ads. During the 2012 presidential race, candidates and outside groups spent $3.8 billion on television ads, according to Kantar Media’s Campaign Media Analysis Group. As of mid-August 2015, candidates and outside groups were spending nine times as much as they were during the same time period for the 2012 presidential race, and Kantar Media predicts nearly $4.4 billion will go into television ads before the 2016 presidential race is over. As political campaigns and super PACs create television ads, they carefully strategize the message they want to convey, deliberately choosing imagery, wording, colors, fonts — and the commercial’s voice-over.

A 2015 study published in Political Communication, “In a Different Voice? Explaining the Use of Men and Women as Voice-Over Announcers in Political Advertising,” looks at the frequency, effectiveness and perceptions of credibility when using voice-overs performed by men versus those performed by women in political television ads. The five researchers, led by Patricia Strach of the University at Albany, State University of New York, used a sample of more than 7,000 ads aired in U.S. legislative elections in 2010 and 2012. Researchers combined that dataset with statistics on the 2008 and 2012 presidential vote outcomes in each congressional district, 2012 presidential campaign ad credibility polls, data on the gender makeup of audiences, and Pew Center polls showing how much men and women cared about certain issues.

The study’s findings include:

• Men voiced more than double the number of political ads in 2010 and 2012 compared to the number of ads voiced by women. Of ads containing a voice-over, 62.7 percent featured only a voice-over by a man, while only 27.7 percent contained only a voice-over by a woman. Another 9.7 percent of ads contained voice-overs by both a man and a woman.
• Women’s voices were found to be more effective when discussing issues perceived as feminine, such as child-care, healthcare and education. Women were much more likely to voice ads discussing these so-called “women’s issues,” with a predicted probability of 41.9 percent. Women’s voices were also more likely to be used in negative ads and in ads about a candidate’s personal characteristics, rather than his or her policy proposals.
• Republicans used voice-overs by women much more than Democrats. While the predicted probability for a voice-over by a woman in a Republican ad was 42 percent, the predicted probability for a voice-over by a woman in a Democratic ad was 28.3 percent.
• Overall, women’s voices were perceived as less credible than men’s voices. Men found men’s voices to be more credible on average, especially on so-called “men’s issues,” which include crime and foreign policy. Women found women’s voices to be more credible than men did. Women also found women’s voices more credible in ads about “women’s issues.”
• Advertisers used voice-overs by women to target more women audience members.

The scholars explained that many campaigns and outside groups are already very effective at these types of strategies. For example, political advertisers already frequently seek to attract women with commercials featuring women narrators, and campaign strategists often use women to voice commercials discussing “women’s issues.” However, the default of political ads is still a man’s voice at a ratio of 2:1. While in many cases using a man’s voice is more effective, the researchers conclude that, “the lesson, then, is that smart campaigns should not default to using a man’s voice for their advertising; careful consideration of the circumstances under which to use men’s and women’s voices may lend the ad more credibility.”

Related research: A 2015 study published in Information Polity, “Community Matters: How Young Adults Use Facebook to Evaluate Political Candidates,” analyzed how social media influences Millennials’ political views. And, this research roundup from Journalist’s Research looks at the effects of negative political ads on voters.

Keywords: political advertising, gender, campaigns, public opinion

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Social Security is the U.S. government’s largest program, accounting for almost a quarter of its spending. Many retired workers, disabled workers and their families rely on social security as a key source of their monthly income. In fiscal 2015, about 60 million people will receive benefits totaling $877 billion. The nearly 40 million retirees enrolled in the program get an average of $1,335 per month.

The Social Security program, established in 1935, is funded partly by payroll taxes and income taxes on benefits. Tax revenues are credited to the program’s two trust funds along with interest payments on securities that are held by those funds, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). The funds, in turn, pay for benefits and administrative costs. Lawmakers, government officials and others have expressed increasing concern about the Social Security program because its viability depends on the solvency of the two trust funds. As more members of the baby-boom generation retire, the gap has widened between the amount of tax revenue going into the trust funds and the amount of money being spent from them. The CBO projected in December 2014 that one of the trust funds — the Disability Insurance Trust Fund — will be depleted in fiscal year 2017 and the other — the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance trust fund – will be exhausted in 2032. Meanwhile, the Social Security Board of Trustees has released different projections. In July 2015, the board reported that the Disability Insurance Trust Fund will be depleted in 2016 and that the combined asset reserves of both funds will be depleted in 2034.

Critics, including some scholars, have questioned the accuracy of Social Security Administration (SSA) projections, which legislators depend on when making decisions related to policy and spending. A 2015 study published in Political Analysis, “Explaining Systematic Bias and Nontransparency in U.S. Social Security Administration Forecasts,” examines the SSA’s forecasts to gauge whether they make the two trust funds appear healthier than they are. The three authors — Konstantin Kashin and Gary King of Harvard University and Samir Soneji of Dartmouth College – also analyzed the possible reasons for forecasting errors. To gather information, the authors conducted “a large number” of personal interviews with individuals who are involved with or connected to the federal agency. This study builds on an earlier, related 2015 study published in The Journal of Economic Perspectives.

This study’s findings include:

• Before 2000, there was no observable bias in SSA forecasts. After 2000, forecasting errors emerged, making Social Security trust funds look healthier than they are.
• The SSA does not meet best practices in scientific evaluation procedures that are common in other government agencies as well as industry and academia. One failing is that the SSA has not published systematic or comprehensive evaluations of its forecasts.
• Errors in forecasting likely occurred because of a lack of transparency in SSA’s forecasting methods and a lack of formal statistical models used to create forecasts. The SSA frequently makes qualitative decisions and manual adjustments in its forecasts without providing sufficient information for outside groups to replicate or evaluate the quality of forecasts.
• The SSA has generated problematic forecasts for financial metrics, including one known as the cost rate, which is equal to the ratio of the cost of SSA programs to the taxable payroll for a given year. From 1978 to 1999, the difference between the forecast five years out and the actual observed value was 0.1 percentage points on average. After 2000, the magnitude of the error increased more than tenfold on average. “Similar results of approximate unbiased forecasts before 2000 and very substantially biased forecasts after 2000 exist for other SSA financial forecasts we studied,” the authors note.
• Forecasting errors did not occur because of any deliberate effort to fudge numbers. Actually, SSA actuaries “hunkered down” to prevent political pressures from affecting their forecasts. However, in addition to shielding themselves from political pressures, they inadvertently also shielded their forecasts from necessary modifications that would help with accuracy.

The researchers offer suggestions for how the SSA can avoid projection errors. They note that while the SSA Office of the Chief Actuary (OCACT) may aim to be unbiased, it needs to follow well-developed, best practices designed to avoid bias. “The self-conscious public stance of OCACT is as an island of fairness and objectivity amidst a storm of partisans, and so far as we can tell this is precisely what they attempt to do,” the authors state. “Having public servants who try for this level of fairness is certainly ideal but, as indicated above, trying harder to be free from bias is an ineffective way to further reduce bias unless they begin to use the well-tested advice from the scholarly literature.”

Related research: A 2015 annual report of the Board of Trustees of the federal Old-Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance program offers details on the actuarial status and financial operations of trust funds for the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance program and the Disability Insurance program. A 2014 research paper for the Michigan Retirement Research Center looks at the effect of life-expectancy trends on the social-security program. A 2012 study from the Congressional Budget Office and the Social Security Administration examines retirement trends, economic circumstances and the effects of rule changes on beneficiaries.

Keywords: Social Security, forecasting, bias, accuracy, budget, federal government, retirement, retirees, elderly, senior citizens, SSA, Old-Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance

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