Megan K Beckett
Biographic Data
| ID | 306450 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Megan K Beckett |
| GIVEN NAMES | Megan K |
| FAMILY NAME | Beckett |
| SIGNATURE | BECKETT M K |
| AFFILIATIONS | RAND Corporation |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 25 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 145 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 25 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2000 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Comparison of Alternative Approaches to Using Race-and-Ethnicity Data in Estimating Differences in Health Care and Social Determinants of Health
OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to compare 2 approaches for representing self-reported race-and-ethnicity, additive modeling (AM), in which every race or ethnicity a person endorses counts toward measurement of that category, and a commonly used mutually exclusive categorization (MEC) approach. The benchmark was a gold-standard, but often impractical approach that analyzes all combinations of race-and-ethnicity as distinct groups. METH…
Consistency in Self-Reported Race-and-Ethnicity Over Time: Implications for Improving the Accuracy of Imputations and Making the Best Use of Self-Report
BACKGROUND: Medicare Bayesian Improved Surname and Geocoding (MBISG), which augments an imperfect race-and-ethnicity administrative variable to estimate probabilities that people would self-identify as being in each of 6 mutually exclusive racial-and-ethnic groups, performs very well for Asian American and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander (AA&NHPI), Black, Hispanic, and White race-and-ethnicity, somewhat less well for American Indian/Alaska Nativ…
Supplemental Items Reduce HCAHPS Response Rates, but Response Rates Do Not Affect HCAHPS Scores: A Randomized Experiment
BACKGROUND: Longer surveys can reduce response rates (RRs). Observational data suggest a positive hospital-level association between RRs and HCAHPS scores, but a negative patient-level relationship. There is no experimental evidence of whether a hospital's RR affects its HCAHPS scores. OBJECTIVES: Estimate the effect of the 59-item versus 32-item survey on RR by survey mode; assess whether any reductions in RR change HCAHPS scores. RESEARCH DESIG…
Evaluation of Proposed New Measures for the Hospital CAHPS Survey
Background: Since its 2006 launch, the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) survey has become the most used hospital patient experience survey, included in public reporting and accountability systems. Responding to emerging evidence of possible gaps in survey content, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services undertook extensive efforts to develop and test new HCAHPS measures. Objectives: Describe the devel…
Updated Adjustment of the HCAHPS Survey for New Modes of Survey Administration and Patient Mix
BACKGROUND: Web-first multimode survey protocols increase Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) survey response rates and representativeness but may result in different HCAHPS scores because of survey mode effects and selective email address availability. A variable absent from many patient-mix adjustment models that may result in more positive patient experiences is whether the hospital admission was planned; …
Survey Protocols, Response Rates, and Representation of Underserved Patients: A Randomized Clinical Trial
In this randomized clinical trial, web-first multimode survey protocols significantly improved the RR and representativeness of patient surveys. The best-performing protocol based on RR and representativeness was web-mail-phone. Web-phone performed well for young and diverse patient populations, and web-mail for older and less diverse patient populations. The US Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will allow hospitals to use the web-mail, we…
Mixed Mode Substantially Increases Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems Response Rates Relative to Single-Mode Protocols
BACKGROUND: Low response rates (RRs) can affect hospitals' data collection costs for patient experience surveys and value-based purchasing eligibility. Most hospitals use single-mode approaches, even though sequential mixed mode (MM) yields higher RRs and perhaps better patient representativeness. Some hospitals may be reluctant to incur MM's potential additional cost and complexity without knowing how much RRs would increase. OBJECTIVE: The aim …
Trends in HCAHPS Survey Scores, 2008–2019: A Quality Improvement Perspective
BACKGROUND: HCAHPS' 2008 initial public reporting, 2012 inclusion in the Hospital Value-Based Purchasing Program (HVBP), and 2015 inclusion in Hospital Star Ratings were intended to improve patient experiences. OBJECTIVES: Characterize pre-COVID-19 (2008-2019) trends in hospital consumer assessment of healthcare providers and systems (HCAHPS) scores. RESEARCH DESIGN: Describe HCAHPS score trends overall, by phase: (1) initial public reporting per…
Do Hospital Characteristics Predict Racial-and-Ethnic Disparities in Patient Experience? National Results From the HCAHPS Survey
OBJECTIVE: Assess whether hospital characteristics associated with better patient experiences overall are also associated with smaller racial-and-ethnic disparities in inpatient experience. BACKGROUND: Hospitals that are smaller, non-profit, and serve high proportions of White patients tend to be high-performing overall, but it is not known whether these hospitals also have smaller racial-and-ethnic disparities in care. RESEARCH DESIGN: We used l…
Changes in Patient Experiences of Hospital Care During the Covid-19 Pandemic
Importance It is important to assess how the COVID-19 pandemic was adversely associated with patients’ care experiences. Objective To describe differences in 2020 to 2021 patient experiences from what would have been expected from prepandemic (2018-2019) trends and assess correlates of changes across hospitals. Design, Setting, and Participants This cohort study compared 2020 to 2021 data with 2018 to 2019 data from 3 900 887 HCAHPS respondents d…
Measuring Equity in the Hospital Setting: An HCAHPS Application of the Health Equity Summary Score
BACKGROUND: Health care quality varies by patient factors, including race-and-ethnicity and preferred language. Addressing inequities requires identifying them and incentivizing equity. OBJECTIVES: We apply an approach first implemented in the Medicare Advantage setting to measure equity in patient experiences by race-and-ethnicity [Asian American and Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander (AA and NHPI), Black, Hispanic, vs. White] and language pref…
Using Ancillary Sociodemographic Data to Identify Sexual Minority Adults Among Those Responding “Something Else” or “Don’t Know” to Sexual Orientation Questions
BACKGROUND: General population surveys are increasingly offering broader response options for questions on sexual orientation-for example, not only gay or lesbian, but also "something else" (SE) and "don't know" (DK). However, these additional response options are potentially confusing for those who may not know what the terms mean. Researchers studying sexual orientation-based disparities face difficult methodological trade-offs regarding how be…
Using Indirect Estimates Based on Name and Census Tract to Improve the Efficiency of Sampling Matched Ethnic Couples from Marriage License Data
For many sampling applications where study goals require oversampling by race/ethnicity, self-reported race/ethnicity is unavailable. We describe a new method that allows oversampling on the basis of indirectly estimated race/ethnicity when name and address information are available. We adapt a Bayesian method for imputing self-reported race/ethnicity from surname and residential address information for use with marriage license application data …
The President’s Questioners: Consequential Attributes of the White House Press Corps
Are members of the White House press corps unified in their treatment of the president at any given time, or does their behavior differ by demographic and professional attributes? This study addresses this issue through multidimensional measurement of the aggressiveness of questions put to nine presidents (1953–2000) in news conferences. In addition to the familiar print/broadcast distinction, three largely unexamined attributes are explored: (1)…
Timing of Parent and Child Communication About Sexuality Relative to Children's Sexual Behaviors
OBJECTIVE: To examine timing of parent–child discussions about sexual topics relative to child-reported sexual behavior. METHODS: Longitudinal study of employed parents and their children, with an initial survey followed by subsequent surveys 3, 6, and 12 months later. Participants were 141 parents, along with their children (13–17 years), who were control participants in a randomized, controlled trial to evaluate a worksite-based intervention to…
Assessing the Need for a New Medical School: A Case Study in Applied Demography
A Watershed in White House Journalism: Explaining the Post-1968 Rise of Aggressive Presidential News
Presidential journalism is known to have grown substantially more aggressive through the 1970s and beyond, but a definitive explanation for this trend remains elusive. Some suggest that events surrounding Vietnam and Watergate transformed the professional norms of journalism. However, the trend could also be a more superficial and transitory response to other circumstantial factors that converged in the same time period, such as president-level c…
Reducing Patients’ Unmet Concerns in Primary Care: The Difference One Word Can Make
Substance Use and High-Risk Sex Among People with HIV: A Comparison Across Exposure Groups
Ethnicity, Language, and Economic Well-being in Rural Guatemala
We examine ethnic differences in objective and perceived economic well-being in rural Guatemala. The evidence shows that long-standing ethnic differentials in objective indicators of household economic well-being actually widened between 1988 and 1995, a period characterized by rapid economic growth rates. We examine the effects of a major determinant of household economic well-being in rural Guatemala, educational attainment, in accounting for e…
Social environment, life challenge, and health among the elderly in Taiwan
The Quality of Retrospective Data: An Examination of Long-Term Recall in a Developing Country
Megan Beckett, Julie Da Vanzo, Narayan Sastry, Constantijn Panis, Christine Peterson, The Quality of Retrospective Data: An Examination of Long-Term Recall in a Developing Country, The Journal of Human Resources, Vol. 36, No. 3 (Summer, 2001), pp. 593-625
Mortality and Sample Selection: Reply to Noymer
Andrew Noymer (in this issue) nicely elaboeven more health-based selection on the samrates upon an important limitation with ple would result in substantial increases in estiBeckett's (2000) methodology; i.e., No one mates of convergence. If health-based seleccan adequately estimate what the health status tion has a minimal impact on the convergence of people out-of-sample (p. 117). Her pattern, then imposing even more selection method assumed th…
Diffusion of ideas about personal hygiene and contamination in poor countries: Evidence from Guatemala
Converging Health Inequalities in Later Life-An Artifact of Mortality Selection
An emergent issue in the health inequalities debate is how socioeconomic status (SES) and physical health relate over the life course. Many studies indicate that the SES-health relationship diminishes in later life. The present research tests the hypothesis that this convergence in health inequalities is an artifact of mortality selection, which biases downwards the "true" association between SES and health in later life. By including respondents…
Converging Health Inequalities in Later Life-An Artifact of Mortality Selection
An emergent issue in the health inequalities debate is how socioeconomic status (SES) and physical health relate over the life course. Many studies indicate that the SES-health relationship diminishes in later life. The present research tests the hypothesis that this convergence in health inequalities is an artifact of mortality selection, which biases downwards the "true" association between SES and health in later life. By including respondents…
A Watershed in White House Journalism: Explaining the Post-1968 Rise of Aggressive Presidential News
Presidential journalism is known to have grown substantially more aggressive through the 1970s and beyond, but a definitive explanation for this trend remains elusive. Some suggest that events surrounding Vietnam and Watergate transformed the professional norms of journalism. However, the trend could also be a more superficial and transitory response to other circumstantial factors that converged in the same time period, such as president-level c…
The President’s Questioners: Consequential Attributes of the White House Press Corps
Are members of the White House press corps unified in their treatment of the president at any given time, or does their behavior differ by demographic and professional attributes? This study addresses this issue through multidimensional measurement of the aggressiveness of questions put to nine presidents (1953–2000) in news conferences. In addition to the familiar print/broadcast distinction, three largely unexamined attributes are explored: (1)…
Social environment, life challenge, and health among the elderly in Taiwan
Diffusion of ideas about personal hygiene and contamination in poor countries: Evidence from Guatemala
Using Indirect Estimates Based on Name and Census Tract to Improve the Efficiency of Sampling Matched Ethnic Couples from Marriage License Data
For many sampling applications where study goals require oversampling by race/ethnicity, self-reported race/ethnicity is unavailable. We describe a new method that allows oversampling on the basis of indirectly estimated race/ethnicity when name and address information are available. We adapt a Bayesian method for imputing self-reported race/ethnicity from surname and residential address information for use with marriage license application data …
Ethnicity, Language, and Economic Well-being in Rural Guatemala
We examine ethnic differences in objective and perceived economic well-being in rural Guatemala. The evidence shows that long-standing ethnic differentials in objective indicators of household economic well-being actually widened between 1988 and 1995, a period characterized by rapid economic growth rates. We examine the effects of a major determinant of household economic well-being in rural Guatemala, educational attainment, in accounting for e…
Converging Health Inequalities in Later Life-An Artifact of Mortality Selection
An emergent issue in the health inequalities debate is how socioeconomic status (SES) and physical health relate over the life course. Many studies indicate that the SES-health relationship diminishes in later life. The present research tests the hypothesis that this convergence in health inequalities is an artifact of mortality selection, which biases downwards the "true" association between SES and health in later life. By including respondents…
The Quality of Retrospective Data: An Examination of Long-Term Recall in a Developing Country
Megan Beckett, Julie Da Vanzo, Narayan Sastry, Constantijn Panis, Christine Peterson, The Quality of Retrospective Data: An Examination of Long-Term Recall in a Developing Country, The Journal of Human Resources, Vol. 36, No. 3 (Summer, 2001), pp. 593-625
Mortality and Sample Selection: Reply to Noymer
Andrew Noymer (in this issue) nicely elaboeven more health-based selection on the samrates upon an important limitation with ple would result in substantial increases in estiBeckett's (2000) methodology; i.e., No one mates of convergence. If health-based seleccan adequately estimate what the health status tion has a minimal impact on the convergence of people out-of-sample (p. 117). Her pattern, then imposing even more selection method assumed th…
Diffusion of ideas about personal hygiene and contamination in poor countries: Evidence from Guatemala
Social environment, life challenge, and health among the elderly in Taiwan
Substance Use and High-Risk Sex Among People with HIV: A Comparison Across Exposure Groups
Ethnicity, Language, and Economic Well-being in Rural Guatemala
We examine ethnic differences in objective and perceived economic well-being in rural Guatemala. The evidence shows that long-standing ethnic differentials in objective indicators of household economic well-being actually widened between 1988 and 1995, a period characterized by rapid economic growth rates. We examine the effects of a major determinant of household economic well-being in rural Guatemala, educational attainment, in accounting for e…
Reducing Patients’ Unmet Concerns in Primary Care: The Difference One Word Can Make
Timing of Parent and Child Communication About Sexuality Relative to Children's Sexual Behaviors
OBJECTIVE: To examine timing of parent–child discussions about sexual topics relative to child-reported sexual behavior. METHODS: Longitudinal study of employed parents and their children, with an initial survey followed by subsequent surveys 3, 6, and 12 months later. Participants were 141 parents, along with their children (13–17 years), who were control participants in a randomized, controlled trial to evaluate a worksite-based intervention to…
Assessing the Need for a New Medical School: A Case Study in Applied Demography
A Watershed in White House Journalism: Explaining the Post-1968 Rise of Aggressive Presidential News
Presidential journalism is known to have grown substantially more aggressive through the 1970s and beyond, but a definitive explanation for this trend remains elusive. Some suggest that events surrounding Vietnam and Watergate transformed the professional norms of journalism. However, the trend could also be a more superficial and transitory response to other circumstantial factors that converged in the same time period, such as president-level c…
The President’s Questioners: Consequential Attributes of the White House Press Corps
Are members of the White House press corps unified in their treatment of the president at any given time, or does their behavior differ by demographic and professional attributes? This study addresses this issue through multidimensional measurement of the aggressiveness of questions put to nine presidents (1953–2000) in news conferences. In addition to the familiar print/broadcast distinction, three largely unexamined attributes are explored: (1)…
Using Indirect Estimates Based on Name and Census Tract to Improve the Efficiency of Sampling Matched Ethnic Couples from Marriage License Data
For many sampling applications where study goals require oversampling by race/ethnicity, self-reported race/ethnicity is unavailable. We describe a new method that allows oversampling on the basis of indirectly estimated race/ethnicity when name and address information are available. We adapt a Bayesian method for imputing self-reported race/ethnicity from surname and residential address information for use with marriage license application data …
Using Ancillary Sociodemographic Data to Identify Sexual Minority Adults Among Those Responding “Something Else” or “Don’t Know” to Sexual Orientation Questions
BACKGROUND: General population surveys are increasingly offering broader response options for questions on sexual orientation-for example, not only gay or lesbian, but also "something else" (SE) and "don't know" (DK). However, these additional response options are potentially confusing for those who may not know what the terms mean. Researchers studying sexual orientation-based disparities face difficult methodological trade-offs regarding how be…
Changes in Patient Experiences of Hospital Care During the Covid-19 Pandemic
Importance It is important to assess how the COVID-19 pandemic was adversely associated with patients’ care experiences. Objective To describe differences in 2020 to 2021 patient experiences from what would have been expected from prepandemic (2018-2019) trends and assess correlates of changes across hospitals. Design, Setting, and Participants This cohort study compared 2020 to 2021 data with 2018 to 2019 data from 3 900 887 HCAHPS respondents d…
Measuring Equity in the Hospital Setting: An HCAHPS Application of the Health Equity Summary Score
BACKGROUND: Health care quality varies by patient factors, including race-and-ethnicity and preferred language. Addressing inequities requires identifying them and incentivizing equity. OBJECTIVES: We apply an approach first implemented in the Medicare Advantage setting to measure equity in patient experiences by race-and-ethnicity [Asian American and Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander (AA and NHPI), Black, Hispanic, vs. White] and language pref…
Survey Protocols, Response Rates, and Representation of Underserved Patients: A Randomized Clinical Trial
In this randomized clinical trial, web-first multimode survey protocols significantly improved the RR and representativeness of patient surveys. The best-performing protocol based on RR and representativeness was web-mail-phone. Web-phone performed well for young and diverse patient populations, and web-mail for older and less diverse patient populations. The US Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will allow hospitals to use the web-mail, we…
Mixed Mode Substantially Increases Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems Response Rates Relative to Single-Mode Protocols
BACKGROUND: Low response rates (RRs) can affect hospitals' data collection costs for patient experience surveys and value-based purchasing eligibility. Most hospitals use single-mode approaches, even though sequential mixed mode (MM) yields higher RRs and perhaps better patient representativeness. Some hospitals may be reluctant to incur MM's potential additional cost and complexity without knowing how much RRs would increase. OBJECTIVE: The aim …
Trends in HCAHPS Survey Scores, 2008–2019: A Quality Improvement Perspective
BACKGROUND: HCAHPS' 2008 initial public reporting, 2012 inclusion in the Hospital Value-Based Purchasing Program (HVBP), and 2015 inclusion in Hospital Star Ratings were intended to improve patient experiences. OBJECTIVES: Characterize pre-COVID-19 (2008-2019) trends in hospital consumer assessment of healthcare providers and systems (HCAHPS) scores. RESEARCH DESIGN: Describe HCAHPS score trends overall, by phase: (1) initial public reporting per…
Do Hospital Characteristics Predict Racial-and-Ethnic Disparities in Patient Experience? National Results From the HCAHPS Survey
OBJECTIVE: Assess whether hospital characteristics associated with better patient experiences overall are also associated with smaller racial-and-ethnic disparities in inpatient experience. BACKGROUND: Hospitals that are smaller, non-profit, and serve high proportions of White patients tend to be high-performing overall, but it is not known whether these hospitals also have smaller racial-and-ethnic disparities in care. RESEARCH DESIGN: We used l…
Comparison of Alternative Approaches to Using Race-and-Ethnicity Data in Estimating Differences in Health Care and Social Determinants of Health
OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to compare 2 approaches for representing self-reported race-and-ethnicity, additive modeling (AM), in which every race or ethnicity a person endorses counts toward measurement of that category, and a commonly used mutually exclusive categorization (MEC) approach. The benchmark was a gold-standard, but often impractical approach that analyzes all combinations of race-and-ethnicity as distinct groups. METH…
Consistency in Self-Reported Race-and-Ethnicity Over Time: Implications for Improving the Accuracy of Imputations and Making the Best Use of Self-Report
BACKGROUND: Medicare Bayesian Improved Surname and Geocoding (MBISG), which augments an imperfect race-and-ethnicity administrative variable to estimate probabilities that people would self-identify as being in each of 6 mutually exclusive racial-and-ethnic groups, performs very well for Asian American and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander (AA&NHPI), Black, Hispanic, and White race-and-ethnicity, somewhat less well for American Indian/Alaska Nativ…
Supplemental Items Reduce HCAHPS Response Rates, but Response Rates Do Not Affect HCAHPS Scores: A Randomized Experiment
BACKGROUND: Longer surveys can reduce response rates (RRs). Observational data suggest a positive hospital-level association between RRs and HCAHPS scores, but a negative patient-level relationship. There is no experimental evidence of whether a hospital's RR affects its HCAHPS scores. OBJECTIVES: Estimate the effect of the 59-item versus 32-item survey on RR by survey mode; assess whether any reductions in RR change HCAHPS scores. RESEARCH DESIG…
Evaluation of Proposed New Measures for the Hospital CAHPS Survey
Background: Since its 2006 launch, the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) survey has become the most used hospital patient experience survey, included in public reporting and accountability systems. Responding to emerging evidence of possible gaps in survey content, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services undertook extensive efforts to develop and test new HCAHPS measures. Objectives: Describe the devel…
Updated Adjustment of the HCAHPS Survey for New Modes of Survey Administration and Patient Mix
BACKGROUND: Web-first multimode survey protocols increase Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) survey response rates and representativeness but may result in different HCAHPS scores because of survey mode effects and selective email address availability. A variable absent from many patient-mix adjustment models that may result in more positive patient experiences is whether the hospital admission was planned; …
Medicine (19 works) · Psychology (14 works) · Sociology (11 works) · Demography (10 works) · Patient Satisfaction in Healthcare (10 works) · Family medicine (8 works) · Nursing (8 works) · Ethnic group (7 works) · Gerontology (6 works) · Health equity (6 works)