Beth C Weitzman
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 339070 |
|---|---|
| NOME | Beth C Weitzman |
| PRENOMES | Beth C |
| SOBRENOME | Weitzman |
| ASSINATURA | WEITZMAN B C |
| AFILIAÇÕES | New York University |
| ORCID | 0009-0001-0574-9470 |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 34 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 249 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 34 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 1990 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2025 |
| ÍNDICE H | 9 |
Estimating the impacts of calorie labels in fast-food settings using a novel comparison
Lessons Learned Across Three Evaluations Incorporating Participant-Generated Photo Elicitation Interviewing
Qualitative interviews and focus groups are commonly used methods to elicit participants’ voices in program evaluations. However, the use of these data-gathering methods can fall short of the goal; even with open-ended questions, the protocols guiding and shaping interviews and focus groups heavily reflect the evaluators’ understanding and experience of the program or intervention under consideration and its target population(s). In this paper, w…
Exploring Flexibility in Philanthropic Funding for Place-Based Efforts to Improve Community Health
Place-based efforts represent a key approach for philanthropies committed to addressing social determinants of health. This article shares insights and reflections from an experience funding and evaluating the Healthy Neighborhoods Initiative, a $22 million, six-year, place-based effort by two grantmaking foundations in nine geographically and demographically diverse communities across New York state. The initiative aimed to facilitate healthy li…
Short relative leg length is associated with overweight and obesity in Mexican immigrant women
The study found an association between having shorter legs relative to one's height and increased risk of overweight/obesity and abdominal adiposity. Findings support the epidemiological evidence regarding the association between short leg length, early life socioeconomic conditions (i.e. limited access to basic rights), and increased risk of adverse health effects later in life
Good Evaluation Measures
In this commentary, we examine Braverman's insights into the trade-offs between feasibility and rigor in evaluation measures and reject his assessment of the trade-off as a zero-sum game. We, argue that feasibility and policy salience are, like reliability and validity, intrinsic to the definition of a good measure. To reduce the tension between feasibility and measurement rigor, we argue that evaluators should make greater use of existing data, …
Lifting Boats Without Closing Gaps
Objectives. We compared cause-specific mortality and birth rates for children and youths aged younger than 18 years in 100 US cities from 1992 through 2002. Methods. We used 5 census indicators to categorize the 100 most populous US cities in 1990 as economically distressed or nondistressed. We used Poisson regression to calculate rate ratios for cause-specific mortality and birth rates, comparing distressed cities to nondistressed cities overall…
Transportation to Clinic
Understanding the Political Context of "New" Policy Issues
This article uses the Advocacy Coalition Framework to identify the stakeholders and their coalitions in the arena of after-school policy, which drew much new attention beginning in the early 1990s in many American cities. Using evidence from case studies in five cities, we show how the framework can be extended beyond stakeholder analysis to include identification of core and secondary value conflicts and of opportunities for policy analysis to h…
Finding the Impact in a Messy Intervention
This article uses the evaluation of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s (RWJF) Urban Health Initiative (UHI), a 10-year effort to improve health and safety outcomes in distressed cities, to demonstrate the strength of an evaluation design that integrates theory of change and quasi-experimental approaches, including the use of comparison cities. This paper focuses on the later stages of implementation and, especially, our methods for estimating p…
Disaster in Context
The Pros and Cons of Comprehensive Community Initiatives at the City Level
This article describes the trade-offs between the city-level and neighborhood-based approaches in examining the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s (RWJF’s) Urban Health Initiative (UHI), an $80 million, 10-year effort to improve the health and safety of young people
Long-Term Associations of Homelessness With Children's Well-Being
To analyze long-term consequences of homelessness, the authors compared 388 formerly homeless children 55 months after shelter entry with 382 housed peers, birth to 17, using mother- and child-reported health, mental health, community involvement, cognitive performance, and educational records. Both groups scored below cognitive and achievement norms. Small group differences favored housed 4- to 6-year-olds on cognition and 4- to 10-year-olds on …
If You Build It, Will They Come
Telephone-survey data were gathered from parents and youth in five of America's largest and most distressed cities to estimate unmet demand for after-school programs. Unmet demand was conceptualized as a function of low utilization and dissatisfaction with one's current arrangement; furthermore, the authors argue that dissatisfaction must stem from something that can be addressed through changes in policy or programs. Large numbers of parents of …
Inconsistencies in place definition
Efforts to Improve Public Policy and Programs through Data Practice
Philanthropies and government agencies interested in children’s issues are encouraging localities to improve the process of collecting, linking, and sharing microdata and aggregated summary statistics. An implicit assumption of these efforts is that outcomes will improve as a result of the new approaches. However, there has been little systematic study of these efforts. In this article, we examine efforts to improve data practice in 15 distressed…
Following the Money
This article describes the nature and utility of fiscal analysis in evaluating complex community interventions. Using New York University’s evaluation of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Urban Health Initiative as an example, the authors describe issues arising in defining and operationalizing constructs for fiscal analysis. The approach’s utility is demonstrated in the use of interim findings to help redefine the program’s goals for resource…
Academic achievement among formerly homeless adolescents and their continuously housed peers
Social Networks and Homelessness Among Women Heads of Household
To examine possible bidirectional relationships between homelessness and deficient social networks, we compared the networks of 251 mothers before, and approximately 5 years after, their families entered shelters with networks of 291 consistently housed poor mothers. At Time 1, more women on the verge of homelessness than housed women reported that they had mothers, grandmothers, friends, and relatives but fewer believed these network members wer…
Low response rate schools in surveys of adolescent risk taking behaviours
Study objective: To examine the potential biases introduced when students in low response rate schools are dropped from classroom based surveys of adolescent risk taking behaviour. Design: Self administered confidential surveys were conducted in classrooms, with follow up visits to each school to survey students absent during the initial survey administration. Data on students in schools that achieved a 70% response rate are compared with data on…
Integrating a Comparison Group Design into a Theory of Change Evaluation
Integrating a Comparison Group Design into a Theory of Change Evaluation
This paper describes how we strengthened the theory of change approach to evaluating a complex social initiative by integrating it with a quasi-experimental, comparison group design. We also demonstrate the plausibility of selecting a credible comparison group through the use of cluster analysis, and describe our work in validating that analysis with additional measures. The integrated evaluation design relies on two points of comparison: (1) pro…
Mother–Child Separations Among Homeless and Housed Families Receiving Public Assistance in New York City
We examined the incidence, characteristics, and predictors of separations of children from mothers in 543 poor families receiving public assistance, 251 of whom had experienced homelessness during the previous 5 years. Forty‐four percent of the homeless mothers and 8% of housed mothers were separated from one or more children. A total of 249 children were separated from 110 homeless families and 34 children from 23 housed families. Children were …
Classroom-Based Surveys of Adolescent Risk-Taking Behaviors
Objectives. This investigation examined the effectiveness of intensive efforts to include frequently absent students in order to reduce bias in classroom-based studies. Methods. Grade 10 students in 13 New York City high schools (n = 2049) completed selfadministered confidential surveys in 4 different phases: a 1-day classroom capture, a 1-day follow-up, and 2 separate 1-week follow-ups. Financial incentives were offered, along with opportunities…
Setting an Agenda for Local Action
Many social programs, funded by government or philanthropy, begin with efforts to improve local conditions with strategic planning. Mandated by funders, these processes aim to include the views of community residents and those with technical expertise. Program leaders are left to reconcile public and expert opinions in determining how to shape their programs. The experience of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Urban Health Initiative suggests …
Tracing the path out of homelessness
Housing patterns of homeless families after shelter exit were explored in order to study the role of subsidized housing in the achievement of residential stability. Families (n = 233), interviewed prior to their first entry into emergency shelter, were reinterviewed five years later. At follow-up, 80% were in their own apartments and only 3% were still in shelter. Of 114 families who obtained subsidized housing after their first shelter exit, 83 …
Predictors of homelessness among families in New York City
OBJECTIVES: This study examined predictors of entry into shelter and subsequent housing stability for a cohort of families receiving public assistance in New York City. METHODS: Interviews were conducted with 266 families as they requested shelter and with a comparison sample of 298 families selected at random from the welfare caseload. Respondents were reinterviewed 5 years later. Families with prior history of shelter use were excluded from the…
Mother–Child Separations Among Homeless and Housed Families Receiving Public Assistance in New York City
We examined the incidence, characteristics, and predictors of separations of children from mothers in 543 poor families receiving public assistance, 251 of whom had experienced homelessness during the previous 5 years. Forty‐four percent of the homeless mothers and 8% of housed mothers were separated from one or more children. A total of 249 children were separated from 110 homeless families and 34 children from 23 housed families. Children were …
Research on Homelessness
Research on homelessness has tended to focus on problems of homeless individuals, sometimes diverting attention from underlying causes and reinforcing stereotypes about the population. A more comprehensive model of homelessness would include factors at the levels of individuals, social groups, and the socioeconomic context that contribute to homelessness. Papers in this issue investigate key factors at each of these levels. They consider the scop…
Pathways to Homelessness Among New York City Families
This article uses survey data to identify three pathways followed by homeless families in the period before they requested emergency shelter. The analysis groups 482 New York City families who were new entrants to homelessness into those whose longest residence in the year prior to the shelter request was as primary tenants in their own living quarters (43% of the sample), those who lived with others last year but who had once been primary tenant…
Long-Term Associations of Homelessness With Children's Well-Being
To analyze long-term consequences of homelessness, the authors compared 388 formerly homeless children 55 months after shelter entry with 382 housed peers, birth to 17, using mother- and child-reported health, mental health, community involvement, cognitive performance, and educational records. Both groups scored below cognitive and achievement norms. Small group differences favored housed 4- to 6-year-olds on cognition and 4- to 10-year-olds on …
Integrating a Comparison Group Design into a Theory of Change Evaluation
This paper describes how we strengthened the theory of change approach to evaluating a complex social initiative by integrating it with a quasi-experimental, comparison group design. We also demonstrate the plausibility of selecting a credible comparison group through the use of cluster analysis, and describe our work in validating that analysis with additional measures. The integrated evaluation design relies on two points of comparison: (1) pro…
Predictors of shelter use among low-income families
For poor housed and homeless families in New York City, NY, we examined the degree to which psychiatric and substance-abuse problems and victimization placed the families at elevated risk of requiring emergency housing, and we documented the prevalence of such problems. These problems were infrequently reported by both groups. However, past mental hospitalization, treatment in a detoxification center, childhood sexual abuse, and adult physical ab…
Understanding the Political Context of "New" Policy Issues
This article uses the Advocacy Coalition Framework to identify the stakeholders and their coalitions in the arena of after-school policy, which drew much new attention beginning in the early 1990s in many American cities. Using evidence from case studies in five cities, we show how the framework can be extended beyond stakeholder analysis to include identification of core and secondary value conflicts and of opportunities for policy analysis to h…
Social Networks and Homelessness Among Women Heads of Household
To examine possible bidirectional relationships between homelessness and deficient social networks, we compared the networks of 251 mothers before, and approximately 5 years after, their families entered shelters with networks of 291 consistently housed poor mothers. At Time 1, more women on the verge of homelessness than housed women reported that they had mothers, grandmothers, friends, and relatives but fewer believed these network members wer…
Setting an Agenda for Local Action
Many social programs, funded by government or philanthropy, begin with efforts to improve local conditions with strategic planning. Mandated by funders, these processes aim to include the views of community residents and those with technical expertise. Program leaders are left to reconcile public and expert opinions in determining how to shape their programs. The experience of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Urban Health Initiative suggests …
Integrating a Comparison Group Design into a Theory of Change Evaluation
Access to hospitals with high-technology cardiac services
OBJECTIVES. Relatively few hospitals in the United States offer high-technology cardiac services (cardiac catheterization, bypass surgery, or angioplasty). This study examined the association between race and admission to a hospital offering those services. METHODS. Records of 11,410 patients admitted with acute myocardial infarction to hospitals in New York State in 1986 were analyzed. RESULTS. Approximately one third of both White and Black pat…
You Can't Eliminate Homelessness Without Housing
Disaster in Context
The Pros and Cons of Comprehensive Community Initiatives at the City Level
This article describes the trade-offs between the city-level and neighborhood-based approaches in examining the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s (RWJF’s) Urban Health Initiative (UHI), an $80 million, 10-year effort to improve the health and safety of young people
Good Evaluation Measures
In this commentary, we examine Braverman's insights into the trade-offs between feasibility and rigor in evaluation measures and reject his assessment of the trade-off as a zero-sum game. We, argue that feasibility and policy salience are, like reliability and validity, intrinsic to the definition of a good measure. To reduce the tension between feasibility and measurement rigor, we argue that evaluators should make greater use of existing data, …
Finding the Impact in a Messy Intervention
This article uses the evaluation of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s (RWJF) Urban Health Initiative (UHI), a 10-year effort to improve health and safety outcomes in distressed cities, to demonstrate the strength of an evaluation design that integrates theory of change and quasi-experimental approaches, including the use of comparison cities. This paper focuses on the later stages of implementation and, especially, our methods for estimating p…
Inconsistencies in place definition
Classroom-Based Surveys of Adolescent Risk-Taking Behaviors
Objectives. This investigation examined the effectiveness of intensive efforts to include frequently absent students in order to reduce bias in classroom-based studies. Methods. Grade 10 students in 13 New York City high schools (n = 2049) completed selfadministered confidential surveys in 4 different phases: a 1-day classroom capture, a 1-day follow-up, and 2 separate 1-week follow-ups. Financial incentives were offered, along with opportunities…
Lessons Learned Across Three Evaluations Incorporating Participant-Generated Photo Elicitation Interviewing
Qualitative interviews and focus groups are commonly used methods to elicit participants’ voices in program evaluations. However, the use of these data-gathering methods can fall short of the goal; even with open-ended questions, the protocols guiding and shaping interviews and focus groups heavily reflect the evaluators’ understanding and experience of the program or intervention under consideration and its target population(s). In this paper, w…
If You Build It, Will They Come
Telephone-survey data were gathered from parents and youth in five of America's largest and most distressed cities to estimate unmet demand for after-school programs. Unmet demand was conceptualized as a function of low utilization and dissatisfaction with one's current arrangement; furthermore, the authors argue that dissatisfaction must stem from something that can be addressed through changes in policy or programs. Large numbers of parents of …
Low response rate schools in surveys of adolescent risk taking behaviours
Study objective: To examine the potential biases introduced when students in low response rate schools are dropped from classroom based surveys of adolescent risk taking behaviour. Design: Self administered confidential surveys were conducted in classrooms, with follow up visits to each school to survey students absent during the initial survey administration. Data on students in schools that achieved a 70% response rate are compared with data on…
Pathways to Homelessness Among New York City Families
This article uses survey data to identify three pathways followed by homeless families in the period before they requested emergency shelter. The analysis groups 482 New York City families who were new entrants to homelessness into those whose longest residence in the year prior to the shelter request was as primary tenants in their own living quarters (43% of the sample), those who lived with others last year but who had once been primary tenant…
Research on Homelessness
Research on homelessness has tended to focus on problems of homeless individuals, sometimes diverting attention from underlying causes and reinforcing stereotypes about the population. A more comprehensive model of homelessness would include factors at the levels of individuals, social groups, and the socioeconomic context that contribute to homelessness. Papers in this issue investigate key factors at each of these levels. They consider the scop…
Social relationships and vulnerability to becoming homeless among poor families
Social relationships and vulnerability to becoming homeless among poor families
This study compares social relationships of 677 mothers in families requesting shelter with those of 495 mothers in housed families, randomly selected from the public assistance caseload in New York City. As hypothesized, women seeking shelter had experienced higher levels of a variety of childhood and adult events indicative of disruptions in social relationships. Contrary to our hypothesis, they were more likely than were housed mothers to have…
Predictors of shelter use among low-income families
For poor housed and homeless families in New York City, NY, we examined the degree to which psychiatric and substance-abuse problems and victimization placed the families at elevated risk of requiring emergency housing, and we documented the prevalence of such problems. These problems were infrequently reported by both groups. However, past mental hospitalization, treatment in a detoxification center, childhood sexual abuse, and adult physical ab…
You Can't Eliminate Homelessness Without Housing
Access to hospitals with high-technology cardiac services
OBJECTIVES. Relatively few hospitals in the United States offer high-technology cardiac services (cardiac catheterization, bypass surgery, or angioplasty). This study examined the association between race and admission to a hospital offering those services. METHODS. Records of 11,410 patients admitted with acute myocardial infarction to hospitals in New York State in 1986 were analyzed. RESULTS. Approximately one third of both White and Black pat…
Predictors of homelessness among families in New York City
OBJECTIVES: This study examined predictors of entry into shelter and subsequent housing stability for a cohort of families receiving public assistance in New York City. METHODS: Interviews were conducted with 266 families as they requested shelter and with a comparison sample of 298 families selected at random from the welfare caseload. Respondents were reinterviewed 5 years later. Families with prior history of shelter use were excluded from the…
Tracing the path out of homelessness
Housing patterns of homeless families after shelter exit were explored in order to study the role of subsidized housing in the achievement of residential stability. Families (n = 233), interviewed prior to their first entry into emergency shelter, were reinterviewed five years later. At follow-up, 80% were in their own apartments and only 3% were still in shelter. Of 114 families who obtained subsidized housing after their first shelter exit, 83 …
The Relationship of Residential Instability to Medical Care Utilization Among Poor Mothers in New York City
OBJECTIVES: This study examines the relationship between residential instability, including mobility and previous homelessness, and the use of medical care among previously sheltered and never-sheltered mothers in New York City. The study represents one of the first efforts to follow up on families after they are no longer homeless. METHODS: Mothers from 543 welfare families in New York City were interviewed, once in 1988 (Time 1) and again begin…
Integrating a Comparison Group Design into a Theory of Change Evaluation
Integrating a Comparison Group Design into a Theory of Change Evaluation
This paper describes how we strengthened the theory of change approach to evaluating a complex social initiative by integrating it with a quasi-experimental, comparison group design. We also demonstrate the plausibility of selecting a credible comparison group through the use of cluster analysis, and describe our work in validating that analysis with additional measures. The integrated evaluation design relies on two points of comparison: (1) pro…
Mother–Child Separations Among Homeless and Housed Families Receiving Public Assistance in New York City
We examined the incidence, characteristics, and predictors of separations of children from mothers in 543 poor families receiving public assistance, 251 of whom had experienced homelessness during the previous 5 years. Forty‐four percent of the homeless mothers and 8% of housed mothers were separated from one or more children. A total of 249 children were separated from 110 homeless families and 34 children from 23 housed families. Children were …
Classroom-Based Surveys of Adolescent Risk-Taking Behaviors
Objectives. This investigation examined the effectiveness of intensive efforts to include frequently absent students in order to reduce bias in classroom-based studies. Methods. Grade 10 students in 13 New York City high schools (n = 2049) completed selfadministered confidential surveys in 4 different phases: a 1-day classroom capture, a 1-day follow-up, and 2 separate 1-week follow-ups. Financial incentives were offered, along with opportunities…
Setting an Agenda for Local Action
Many social programs, funded by government or philanthropy, begin with efforts to improve local conditions with strategic planning. Mandated by funders, these processes aim to include the views of community residents and those with technical expertise. Program leaders are left to reconcile public and expert opinions in determining how to shape their programs. The experience of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Urban Health Initiative suggests …
Low response rate schools in surveys of adolescent risk taking behaviours
Study objective: To examine the potential biases introduced when students in low response rate schools are dropped from classroom based surveys of adolescent risk taking behaviour. Design: Self administered confidential surveys were conducted in classrooms, with follow up visits to each school to survey students absent during the initial survey administration. Data on students in schools that achieved a 70% response rate are compared with data on…
Academic achievement among formerly homeless adolescents and their continuously housed peers
Social Networks and Homelessness Among Women Heads of Household
To examine possible bidirectional relationships between homelessness and deficient social networks, we compared the networks of 251 mothers before, and approximately 5 years after, their families entered shelters with networks of 291 consistently housed poor mothers. At Time 1, more women on the verge of homelessness than housed women reported that they had mothers, grandmothers, friends, and relatives but fewer believed these network members wer…
Following the Money
This article describes the nature and utility of fiscal analysis in evaluating complex community interventions. Using New York University’s evaluation of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Urban Health Initiative as an example, the authors describe issues arising in defining and operationalizing constructs for fiscal analysis. The approach’s utility is demonstrated in the use of interim findings to help redefine the program’s goals for resource…
Inconsistencies in place definition
Efforts to Improve Public Policy and Programs through Data Practice
Philanthropies and government agencies interested in children’s issues are encouraging localities to improve the process of collecting, linking, and sharing microdata and aggregated summary statistics. An implicit assumption of these efforts is that outcomes will improve as a result of the new approaches. However, there has been little systematic study of these efforts. In this article, we examine efforts to improve data practice in 15 distressed…
Long-Term Associations of Homelessness With Children's Well-Being
To analyze long-term consequences of homelessness, the authors compared 388 formerly homeless children 55 months after shelter entry with 382 housed peers, birth to 17, using mother- and child-reported health, mental health, community involvement, cognitive performance, and educational records. Both groups scored below cognitive and achievement norms. Small group differences favored housed 4- to 6-year-olds on cognition and 4- to 10-year-olds on …
If You Build It, Will They Come
Telephone-survey data were gathered from parents and youth in five of America's largest and most distressed cities to estimate unmet demand for after-school programs. Unmet demand was conceptualized as a function of low utilization and dissatisfaction with one's current arrangement; furthermore, the authors argue that dissatisfaction must stem from something that can be addressed through changes in policy or programs. Large numbers of parents of …
Finding the Impact in a Messy Intervention
This article uses the evaluation of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s (RWJF) Urban Health Initiative (UHI), a 10-year effort to improve health and safety outcomes in distressed cities, to demonstrate the strength of an evaluation design that integrates theory of change and quasi-experimental approaches, including the use of comparison cities. This paper focuses on the later stages of implementation and, especially, our methods for estimating p…
Disaster in Context
Medicine (22 obras) · Psychology (21 obras) · Political science (19 obras) · Homelessness and Social Issues (18 obras) · Sociology (16 obras) · Computer Science (13 obras) · Food Security and Health in Diverse Populations (13 obras) · Demography (11 obras) · Environmental health (10 obras) · Economics (9 obras)