2019 Colloquium
The 2019 Colloquium started with an introduction from our director, Dr Barry Milne, who outlined the following presentation topics for the day.
Going Straight Home? Housing for people leaving prison
Alice Mills & Cinnamon Lindsay
Going Straight Home is a Marsden-funded study which aims to establish and explore the link between stable housing and recidivism among people leaving prison in New Zealand. Here we will discuss the methodology for this study and will present interim findings regarding pre and post-release housing from interviews with people in five different prisons.
Data Archiving in New Zealand: COMPASS's history and falling behind
Martin von Randow
We established the New Zealand Social Science Data Service as a data archive in 2007, but the low demand we saw did not justify the ongoing cost of the software, and we struggled to gain traction at the institutional level for several years. In 2014 the Centre of eResearch set up a Figshare repository, including the data sets we had curated, but it was not specialised to that area. We are now working with the Australian Data Archive to add value to the data we hold, but overall forward progress has been slow during the years we have been involved. With data collection becoming ever more expensive, and response rates dropping, data archives are becoming ever more valuable, and we as a country have rather fallen behind in the area.
Statistical Disclosure Risk in Data Repositories: A tool for assessing its extent
Barry Milne
Funders and journals are beginning to demand that data sets are archived for re-use (a noble aim). However, few researchers (and journals and funders) seem to be aware that even de-identified data sets can have a high risk of disclosure. I report on an investigation of the disclosure risk of data sets archived in four popular Dataverses, and suggest that more can be done by data archives to ensure the risk of the data sets in their archives is low, while not adversely impacting the utility of the data.
Examining measures of family and household socioeconomic position in New Zealand
Natalia Boven
While much health and social science research considers socioeconomic impacts on outcomes at the individual level, individuals are embedded within families and households with shared resources and health determinants. My PhD will use the IDI to examine various methods of combining individual socioeconomic information to form measures for couples, households and parental units in the New Zealand context. This presentation will present the research proposal for this project.
Creating a census-based measure of socioeconomic position for the 65+ population in New Zealand
Olivia Healey
In many studies of health inequalities in the 65+ population, researchers use traditional indicators of socioeconomic position (SEP) such as education, occupation, and income. While these accurately reflect the working-age population (15–64), the applicability of these indicators is likely to decrease with age. In this study, we propose a framework for measuring SEP for 65+, to distinguish between ‘advantaged’ and ‘disadvantaged’ groups in the older population. Using 11 variables representing “house value”, “housing income”, “tenure”, and “assets and savings”, we created a ‘lifetime measure’, dividing the 65+ population into low, medium, and high SEP.
A Better Start National Science Challenge: Update on recent findings
Barry Milne
The Better Start “E Tipu E Rea” National Science Challenge aims to understand and address the issues facing children and young people in New Zealand, with a particular focus on three themes: Healthy Weight, Resilient Teens, and Successful Literacy and Learning. I will report on recent findings from analysis of whole population (IDI) data to understand the epidemiology and risk factors associated with outcomes in the three theme areas.
Trends in the dispensing of ADHD medication to New Zealand youth
Stephanie D'Souza
Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterised by symptoms of hyperactivity/impulsivity and/or inattention. Management of ADHD involves a combination of counselling/therapy, lifestyle changes, and medication. Global trends show an increase in ADHD medication dispensing and use in young people over time, leading to concerns that ADHD medications are potentially overprescribed. However, it is not known whether a similar trend in ADHD medication dispensing is observed in NZ. Using the Integrated Data Infrastructure, this study describes the trend in ADHD medication dispensing to NZ youth over almost a ten year period, and investigates whether this trend varies by sex, age, ethnicity and area-level deprivation.
Comparative study of attitudes to religious groups in New Zealand reveals Muslim-specific prejudice
Lara Greaves
After the March 15 terrorist attack, a national dialogue began about Islamophobia in New Zealand. Previous research has investigated attitudes towards Muslims in comparison to ethnic minorities and immigrants. However, we are unaware of any studies in New Zealand comparing attitudes to Muslims with attitudes to other religious groups. Here we present evidence from the New Zealand edition of the International Social Survey Programme module on religion, a national postal survey (N = 1,326) collected between September 2018 and January 2019. We assessed perceived threat and negativity towards Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, and Atheists. We found greater perceived threat and negativity towards Muslims compared with other groups. In particular, we found that older people, Men, those with lower education levels, and those with more right-wing attitudes reported greater threat and greater negativity towards Muslims. These indicators predicted prejudice towards multiple religious groups. Taken collectively, this study helps to identify areas for improving attitudes to Muslims and other religious groups in New Zealand.