Burton Herbert Singer
Biographic Data
| ID | 216253 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Burton Herbert Singer |
| GIVEN NAMES | Burton Herbert |
| FAMILY NAME | Singer |
| SIGNATURE | SINGER B H |
| AFFILIATIONS | Princeton University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5295-5971 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 60 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 347 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 60 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1973 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
On sociologically derived mathematics
Motivated by empirical studies of labor mobility, in 1970 Sy Spilerman approached me with a question about when a given stochastic matrix, P, can be reached from the identity matrix, I, in a prescribed period of time via the Kolmogorov forward and backward differential equations. A complete answer to this question for time-homogeneous Markov chains was provided in 1976-summarized herein-and a diversity of time-inhomogeneous cases have been studie…
Spatiotemporal pattern of Covid-19 spread in Brazil
Unmitigated spread in Brazil Despite an extensive network of primary care availability, Brazil has suffered profoundly during the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic. Using daily data from state health offices, Castro et al. analyzed the pattern of spread of COVID-19 cases and deaths in the country from February to October 2020. Clusters of deaths before cases became apparent indicated unmitigated spread. SARS-Co…
The U.S. Needs a National Human Health Observing System
The COVID-19 pandemic and increasing frequency and severity of environmental disasters reveal an urgent need for a robust health observing/surveillance system. With the possible exception of Brazil, we know of no such comprehensive health observing capacity. The US should create a national system of linked regionally-based health monitoring systems similar to those for weather, ocean conditions, and climate. Like those for weather, the health obs…
Towards integrated modeling of the long-term impacts of oil spills
Impact of international travel and border control measures on the global spread of the novel 2019 coronavirus outbreak
The novel coronavirus outbreak (COVID-19) in mainland China has rapidly spread across the globe. Within 2 mo since the outbreak was first reported on December 31, 2019, a total of 566 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS CoV-2) cases have been confirmed in 26 other countries. Travel restrictions and border control measures have been enforced in China and other countries to limit the spread of the outbreak. We estimate the impact of these contr…
Framework for a Community Health Observing System for the Gulf of Mexico Region
The Gulf of Mexico (GoM) region is prone to disasters, including recurrent oil spills, hurricanes, floods, industrial accidents, harmful algal blooms, and the current COVID-19 pandemic. The GoM and other regions of the U.S. lack sufficient baseline health information to identify, attribute, mitigate, and facilitate prevention of major health effects of disasters. Developing capacity to assess adverse human health consequences of future disasters …
Introduction. What works? And for whom
Longitudinal Data
Experience and lessons from health impact assessment for human rights impact assessment
As globalisation has opened remote parts of the world to foreign investment, global leaders at the United Nations and beyond have called on multinational companies to foresee and mitigate negative impacts on the communities surrounding their overseas operations. This movement towards corporate impact assessment began with a push for environmental and social inquiries. It has been followed by demands for more detailed assessments, including health…
Corporate human rights commitments and the psychology of business acceptance of human rights duties
Between 2012 and 2013, we analysed and coded the human rights policies of the largest corporations in six of the world's most globalised industries: finance, mining, oil and gas, food and beverage, apparel and agribusiness. Using the language of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights as benchmarks, we developed a scoring mechanism to evaluate the level of responsibility companies had accepted to (1) respect human rights, (2) condu…
Assessing corporate project impacts in changeable contexts
Assessing human rights impacts in corporate development projects
Agricultural settlement and soil quality in the Brazilian Amazon
This paper discusses the implications of poor or non-existent information on soil quality, at the proper scale, during the planning and implementation of settlement projects in the Brazilian Amazon. Based on data from the Machadinho settlement project, Rondônia, we show that most settlers had no knowledge about the agricultural capability of the area, did not receive technical information, could not afford agricultural inputs, planted inadequate …
Assessing health impacts in complex eco-epidemiological settings in the humid tropics
Preparing for Resettlement Associated with Climate Change
Mitigation and adaptation projects will lead to increased population displacement, calling for new research and attention to past lessons.
Assessing health impacts in complex eco-epidemiological settings in the humid tropics
Psychological Well-Being
A model of positive psychological functioning that emerges from diverse domains of theory and philosophy is presented. Six key dimensions of wellness are defined, and empirical research summarizing their empirical translation and sociodemographic correlates is presented. Variations in well-being are explored via studies of discrete life events and enduring human experiences. Life histories of the psychologically vulnerable and resilient, defined …
Population decline induced by gonorrhoea and tuberculosis transmission
Assessing health impacts in complex eco-epidemiological settings in the humid tropics
Know Thyself and Become What You Are
Increased Mortality Risk in Older Adults With Persistently Low or Declining Feelings of Usefulness to Others
Older adults with persistently low perceived usefulness or feelings of usefulness that decline to a low level may be a vulnerable group with increased risk for poor health outcomes in later life
The 6/94 gap in health impact assessment
Diverse pathways to positive and negative affect in adulthood and later life
Recursive partitioning is an analytic technique that is useful for identifying complex combinations of conditions that predict particular outcomes as well as for delineating multiple subgroup differences in how such factors work together. As such, the methodology is well suited to multidisciplinary, life course inquiry in which the goal is to integrate many interacting influences and understand subgroup variation. The authors conducted recursive …
Socioeconomic Status and Psychological Well-Being Predict Cross-Time Change in Glycosylated Hemoglobin in Older Women Without Diabetes
OBJECTIVE: To investigate whether socioeconomic status and psychological well-being (eudaimonic and hedonic aspects) predicted nondiabetic levels of glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c) over time, after adjusting for covariates and baseline level of HbA1c. METHODS: These questions were investigated with a longitudinal sample (n = 97; age = 61-91 years) of older women without diabetes. Socioeconomic status, well-being, and health behaviors were assesse…
Socioeconomic Status Predicts Objective and Subjective Sleep Quality in Aging Women
OBJECTIVE: To test the hypothesis that socioeconomic status (SES) would be associated with sleep quality measured objectively, even after controlling for related covariates (health status, psychosocial characteristics). Epidemiological studies linking SES and sleep quality have traditionally relied on self-reported assessments of sleep. METHODS: Ninety-four women, 61 to 90 years of age, participated in this study. SES was determined by pretax hou…
Cumulative biological risk and socio-economic differences in mortality
The Representation of Social Processes by Markov Models
In this paper we consider a class of issues which are central to modeling social phenomena by continuous-time Markov structures. In particular, we discuss (a) embeddability, or how to determine whether observations on an empirical process could have arisen via the evolution of a continuous-time Markov structure; and (b) identification, or what to do if the observations are consisten with more than one continuous-time Markov structure. With respec…
Linking Life Histories and Mental Health
We present a strategy for using longitudinal survey data to identify life history pathways linked with mental health outcomes. The central aim is to begin with richly detailed descriptions of individual lives and, from them, to discern generalizable features of aggregates of multiple lives. Conceptual principles guiding the organization and interpretation of life history information are summarized. Data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (WLS)…
Best news yet on the six-factor model of well-being
Causality in the Social Sciences
Reassessing zooarchaeological quantification
Currently available means of quantifying archaeological fauna for the purpose of assessing original species ratios of the ancient kill are generally inadequate to the task. Depositional processes and the distortion they may create will, in most cases, skew such calculations, which are uniformly dependent upon some measure of representativeness in bone recovery frequencies. Examples of depositional bias are given, and encouragement is offered to z…
Black/White Differences in Health Status and Mortality Among the Elderly
Grade of membership (GOM) representations are used to characterize and compare the health status of a very heterogeneous sample of blacks and whites in an elderly cohort of 2,806 noninstitutionalized men and women living in New Haven, Connecticut. They were interviewed in 1982 as part of the Established Populations for the Epidemiologic Study of the Elderly (EPESE). Ideal profiles based on functional disabilities, chronic diseases, and selected b…
Impact of socioeconomic status on longitudinal accumulation of cardiovascular risk in young adults
Feelings of Usefulness to Others, Disability, and Mortality in Older Adults
We examined feelings of usefulness to others as a predictor of disability and mortality risk in a sample of older adults (aged 70-79 years) from the MacArthur Study of Successful Aging. We examined participants' perceptions of their usefulness to friends and family, measured at a baseline interview, as a predictor of subsequent increases in self-reported mobility disability, the onset of difficulty in performing activities of daily living, or mor…
Towards an Integrated Framework for Development and Environment Policy
The 6/94 gap in health impact assessment
Assessing health impacts of the Chad–Cameroon petroleum development and pipeline project
Perceived malaria illness reports in mobile populations
Coverage of a representative sample of border or frontier populations by blood samples is not logistically feasible. Thus the assessment of the extent of malaria illness and the potential demand for malaria-specific health services requires the collection of both direct and indirect perceived malaria illness reports. Indirect reports, the basis on which representative population coverage rests, are provided by members of the respondent's househol…
Assessing health impacts in complex eco-epidemiological settings in the humid tropics
Assessing health impacts in complex eco-epidemiological settings in the humid tropics
Diverse pathways to positive and negative affect in adulthood and later life
Recursive partitioning is an analytic technique that is useful for identifying complex combinations of conditions that predict particular outcomes as well as for delineating multiple subgroup differences in how such factors work together. As such, the methodology is well suited to multidisciplinary, life course inquiry in which the goal is to integrate many interacting influences and understand subgroup variation. The authors conducted recursive …
Can an attribution assessment be made for Yellow Rain? Systematic reanalysis in a chemical-and-biological-weapons use investigation
In intelligence investigations, such as those into reports of chemical- or biological-weapons (CBW) use, evidence may be difficult to assemble and, once assembled, to weigh. We propose a methodology for such investigations and then apply it to a large body of recently declassified evidence to determine the extent to which an attribution can now be made in the Yellow Rain case. Our analysis strongly supports the hypothesis that CBW were used in So…
Social Mobility Models for Heterogeneous Populations
Sociological Methodology is currently published by American Sociological Association. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/about/terms.html. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the …
Introduction. What works? And for whom
Assessing human rights impacts in corporate development projects
Increased Mortality Risk in Older Adults With Persistently Low or Declining Feelings of Usefulness to Others
Older adults with persistently low perceived usefulness or feelings of usefulness that decline to a low level may be a vulnerable group with increased risk for poor health outcomes in later life
Was malaria present in the Amazon before the European conquest? Available evidence and future research agenda
Clustering on the Main Diagonal in Mobility Matrices
An empirical regularity in mobility matrices that has given rise to a considerable volume of research concerns the phenomenon of clustering on the main diagonal.The reference model This content downloaded from 160.39.33.214 on Fri, 10 Oct 2014 11:51:55 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions'By the caret (A) over a matrix or over entries in a matrix we mean esti-.mates made directly from observations.Entries without this symbol refer to …
Agricultural settlement and soil quality in the Brazilian Amazon
This paper discusses the implications of poor or non-existent information on soil quality, at the proper scale, during the planning and implementation of settlement projects in the Brazilian Amazon. Based on data from the Machadinho settlement project, Rondônia, we show that most settlers had no knowledge about the agricultural capability of the area, did not receive technical information, could not afford agricultural inputs, planted inadequate …
Spatial patterns of malaria in the Amazon
Social Mobility Models for Heterogeneous Populations
Sociological Methodology is currently published by American Sociological Association. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/about/terms.html. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the …
The Representation of Social Processes by Markov Models
In this paper we consider a class of issues which are central to modeling social phenomena by continuous-time Markov structures. In particular, we discuss (a) embeddability, or how to determine whether observations on an empirical process could have arisen via the evolution of a continuous-time Markov structure; and (b) identification, or what to do if the observations are consisten with more than one continuous-time Markov structure. With respec…
Clustering on the Main Diagonal in Mobility Matrices
An empirical regularity in mobility matrices that has given rise to a considerable volume of research concerns the phenomenon of clustering on the main diagonal.The reference model This content downloaded from 160.39.33.214 on Fri, 10 Oct 2014 11:51:55 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions'By the caret (A) over a matrix or over entries in a matrix we mean esti-.mates made directly from observations.Entries without this symbol refer to …
Estimation of Nonstationary Markov Chains from Panel Data
With a few exceptions (see Tuma, 1976; Littman and Mode, 1977; Pickens and Soyka, 1980), most attempts to model individual choice behavior with and related models have interpreted Markov to mean time-homogeneous Markov. Although considerable analytic simplicity is gained via the use of such models, there is a substantial sacrifice in realism and flexibility. Indeed, much of 'the empirical failure of time-homogeneous chains to provide good descrip
Reassessing zooarchaeological quantification
Currently available means of quantifying archaeological fauna for the purpose of assessing original species ratios of the ancient kill are generally inadequate to the task. Depositional processes and the distortion they may create will, in most cases, skew such calculations, which are uniformly dependent upon some measure of representativeness in bone recovery frequencies. Examples of depositional bias are given, and encouragement is offered to z…
Econometric duration analysis
A Method for Minimizing the Impact of Distributional Assumptions in Econometric Models for Duration Data
Conventional analyses of single spell duration models control for unobservables using a random effect estimator with the distribution of unobservables selected by ad hoc criteria. Both theoretical and empirical examples indicate that estimates of structural parameters obtained from conventional procedures are very sensitive to the choice of mixing distribution. Conventional procedures overparameterize duration models. We develop a consistent nonp…
Mathematical Models of Infectious Diseases
Burton Singer, Mathematical Models of Infectious Diseases: Seeking New Tools for Planning and Evaluating Control Programs, Population and Development Review, Vol. 10, Supplement: Child Survival: Strategies for Research (1984), pp. 347-365
Advancing Social Research
Causality in the Social Sciences
Black/White Differences in Health Status and Mortality Among the Elderly
Grade of membership (GOM) representations are used to characterize and compare the health status of a very heterogeneous sample of blacks and whites in an elderly cohort of 2,806 noninstitutionalized men and women living in New Haven, Connecticut. They were interviewed in 1982 as part of the Established Populations for the Epidemiologic Study of the Elderly (EPESE). Ideal profiles based on functional disabilities, chronic diseases, and selected b…
Perceived malaria illness reports in mobile populations
Coverage of a representative sample of border or frontier populations by blood samples is not logistically feasible. Thus the assessment of the extent of malaria illness and the potential demand for malaria-specific health services requires the collection of both direct and indirect perceived malaria illness reports. Indirect reports, the basis on which representative population coverage rests, are provided by members of the respondent's househol…
The Contours of Positive Human Health
The primary objectives of this article are (a) to put forth an explicit operational formulation of positive human health that goes beyond prevailing "absence of illness" criteria; (b) to clarify that positive human health does not derive from extant medical considerations, which are not about wellness, but necessarily require a base in philosophical accounts of the "goods" in life; (c) to provoke a change of emphasis from strong tendencies to con…
Linking Life Histories and Mental Health
We present a strategy for using longitudinal survey data to identify life history pathways linked with mental health outcomes. The central aim is to begin with richly detailed descriptions of individual lives and, from them, to discern generalizable features of aggregates of multiple lives. Conceptual principles guiding the organization and interpretation of life history information are summarized. Data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (WLS)…
Hierarchies of Life Histories and Associated Health Risks
A bstract : Widely documented inverse associations between socioeconomic standing and incident chronic disease and mortality invite explanation in terms of pathways to these outcomes. Empirical identification of pathways, or histories, requires measures that assess cumulative wear and tear on physiological systems following from psychosocial adversity and genetic predispositions. Such an assessment, allostatic load, has been shown to predict late…
Interpersonal Flourishing
Quality ties to others are universally endorsed as central to optimal living. Social scientists have extensively studied the relational world, but in somewhat separate literatures (e.g., attachment, close relationships, marital and family ties, social support). Studies of intimacy and close connection are infrequently connected to health, whereas studies of health and social support rarely intersect with literatures on relational flourishing. Eff…
Allostatic load as a marker of cumulative biological risk
Allostatic load (AL) has been proposed as a new conceptualization of cumulative biological burden exacted on the body through attempts to adapt to life's demands. Using a multisystem summary measure of AL, we evaluated its capacity to predict four categories of health outcomes, 7 years after a baseline survey of 1,189 men and women age 70–79. Higher baseline AL scores were associated with significantly increased risk for 7-year mortality as well …
Towards an Integrated Framework for Development and Environment Policy
Allostatic load as a predictor of functional decline
Social Relationships, Gender, and Allostatic Load Across Two Age Cohorts
OBJECTIVE: This article addresses the question of biological pathways through which social integration and support may affect morbidity and mortality risks. A new concept of cumulative biological risk, allostatic load, is used to test the hypothesis that social experiences affect a range of biological systems. Data from two community-based cohorts are examined to evaluate the consistency of findings across two different age groups. METHODS: One c…
Making a Life Worth Living
Despite the vast literature that has implicated asymmetric activation of the prefrontal cortex in approach-withdrawal motivation and emotion, no published reports have directly explored the neural correlates of well-being. Eighty-four right-handed adults (ages 57–60) completed self-report measures of eudaimonic well-being, hedonic well-being, and positive affect prior to resting electroencephalography. As hypothesized, greater left than right sup…
Positive health
Two key types of well–being, eudaimonic and hedonic, are reviewed. The first addresses ideas of self–development, personal growth and purposeful engagement, while the second is concerned with positive feelings such as happiness and contentment. How well–being varies by age and socio–economic standing is briefly summarized, followed by examination of its biological correlates (neuroendocrine, immune, cardiovascular, rapid eye movement (REM) sleep)…
Cumulative biological risk and socio-economic differences in mortality
Social Environments and the Genetics of Aging
We selectively review the literature in behavioral and molecular genetics, including both laboratory and epidemiologic studies, with emphasis on how social environments, particularly emotion in significant social relationships, influence gene expression. Attention is given to cross-talk between human and animal studies. Environments are pivotal in understanding phenotypic outcomes, and this demands research on gene–environment interactions. Illus…
Assessing health impacts of the Chad–Cameroon petroleum development and pipeline project
Medicine (31 works) · Psychology (24 works) · Computer Science (19 works) · Geography (17 works) · Health disparities and outcomes (15 works) · Political science (15 works) · Economics (14 works) · Environmental health (12 works) · Psychological Well-being and Life Satisfaction (12 works) · Business (11 works)