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Social scientists often rely on survey data to examine group differences. A problem with survey data is the potential misclassification of group membership due to poorly trained interviewers, inconsistent responses, or errors in marking questions. In data containing unequal subsample sizes, the consequences of misclassification can be considerable, especially for groups with small sample sizes. In this study, the authors develop a new mixture model that allows researchers to address the problem using the data they have. By supplying additional information from the data, this two-stage model is estimated using a Bayesian method. The method is illustrated with the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study data. As anticipated, the more information supplied to adjust for group membership, the better the model performs. Even when small amounts of information are supplied, the model produces reasonably robust estimates and improves the fit compared to the no-adjustment model. Sensitivity analyses are conducted on choices of priors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

No trend in U.S. public opinion has elicited more enduring concern among scholars, political commentators, and politicians than declining levels of public confidence in the federal government. Motivated by the possibility that this decline signals a crisis of legitimacy or growing dissatisfaction with the overall direction of public policy, two generations of scholarly debates have yielded three competing theoretical interpretations of this phenomenon. While they provide divergent answers to important questions about the devolution of policy-making from the federal government to subnational levels of government, competing hypotheses implied by these interpretations have not been successfully evaluated. We seek to advance theory and research by investigating whether governmental confidence affects the public's willingness to support federal involvement within specific policy domains such as health care and education. Evaluating hypotheses implied by competing interpretations of declining government confidence, we find that the relationship between government confidence and polity preferences is small and shows no evidence of trends. We discuss implications for competing interpretations of government confidence and the possible role of declining confidence in explaining con temporary patterns of welfare state retrenchment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND:Although the significance of the human vaginal microbiome for health and disease is increasingly acknowledged, there is paucity of data on the differences in the composition of the vaginal microbiome upon infection with different sexually transmitted pathogens. METHOD:The composition of the vaginal bacterial community of women with Trichomonas vaginalis (TV, N = 18) was compared to that of women with Chlamydia trachomatis (CT, N = 14), and to that of controls (N = 21) (women negative for TV, CT and bacterial vaginosis). The vaginal bacterial composition was determined using high throughput sequencing with the Ion 16S metagenomics kit of the variable regions 2, 4 and 8 of the bacterial 16S ribosomal RNA gene from the vaginal swab DNA extract of the women. QIIME and R package "Phyloseq" were used to assess the α- and β-diversity and absolute abundance of the 16S rRNA gene per sample in the three groups. Differences in taxa at various levels were determined using the independent T-test. RESULTS:A total of 545 operational taxonomic units (OTUs) were identified in all the three groups of which 488 occurred in all three groups (core OTUs). Bacterial α-diversity, by both Simpson's and Shannon's indices, was significantly higher, (p = 0.056) and (p = 0.001) respectively, among women with either TV or CT than among controls (mean α-diversity TV-infected > CT-infected > Controls). At the genus level, women infected with TV had a significantly (p < 0.01) higher abundance of Parvimonas and Prevotella species compared to both controls and CT-infected women, whereas women infected with CT had a significantly (p < 0.05) higher abundance of Anaerococcus, Collinsella, Corynebacterium and Dialister. CONCLUSION:The vaginal microbiomes of TV and CT-infected women were markedly different from each other and from women without TV and CT. Future studies should determine whether the altered microbiomes are merely markers of disease, or whether they actively contribute to the pathology of the two genital infections.

BACKGROUND:Women attending antenatal care (ANC) in resource-limited countries are frequently screened for syphilis and HIV, but rarely for other sexually transmitted infections (STIs). We assessed the prevalence of curable STIs, defined as infection with either Chlamydia trachomatis or Neisseria gonorrhoeae or Trichomonas vaginalis, from July to September 2015. METHODS:In a cross-sectional study, women attending ANC at the Kilifi County Hospital, Kenya, had a urine sample tested for C. trachomatis/N. gonorrhoeae by GeneXpert® and a vaginal swab for T. vaginalis by culture. Bacterial vaginosis (BV) was defined as a Nugent score of 7-10 of the Gram stain of a vaginal smear in combination with self-reported vaginal discharge. Genital ulcers were observed during collection of vaginal swabs. All women responded to questions on socio-demographics and sexual health and clinical symptoms of STIs. Predictors for curable STIs were assessed in multivariable logistic regression. RESULTS:A total of 42/202 (20.8%, 95% confidence interval (CI):15.4-27.0) women had a curable STI. The prevalence was 14.9% for C. trachomatis (95% CI:10.2-20.5), 1.0% for N. gonorrhoeae (95% CI: 0.1-3.5), 7.4% for T. vaginalis (95% CI:4.2-12.0), 19.3% for BV (95% CI: 14.1-25.4) and 2.5% for genital ulcers (95% CI: 0.8-5.7). Predictors for infection with curable STIs included women with a genital ulcer (adjusted odds ratio (AOR) = 35.0, 95% CI: 2.7-461.6) compared to women without a genital ulcer, women who used water for cleaning after visiting the toilet compared to those who used toilet paper or other solid means (AOR = 4.1, 95% CI:1.5-11.3), women who reported having sexual debut ≤ 17 years compared to women having sexual debut ≥18 years (AOR = 2.7, 95% CI:1.1-6.6), and BV-positive women (AOR = 2.7, 95% CI:1.1-6.6) compared to BV-negative women. CONCLUSION:One in five women attending ANC had a curable STI. These infections were associated with genital ulcers, hygiene practices, early sexual debut and bacterial vaginosis.