By the year 2050, the population of the United States is projected to be approximately half white and half non-white. Yet the knowledge of child development within ethnic minority groups lags markedly behind knowledge of child development for white Americans, and it is increasingly clear that the rich diversity within minority groups is masked by studies focusing on between-group comparisons. Children of Color: Research, Health, and Public Policy Issues, a collection of original essays, brings together researchers from the fields of education, family and child ecology, nursing, psychology, sociology, pediatrics, anthropology, and social work to explore the rich cultural, familial, and individual diversity of all ethnic minority groups. The essays were generated by round table discussions sponsored by the Society for Research in Child Development and the Irving Harris Foundation, and they cover a broad range of topics including immigration policy, social policy, health status of immigrant infants, children and families, and educational policies related to minority children.

Medicare Reform - the first volume in a new series sponsored by the George Bush School of Government and Public Policy at Texas A&M University - tackles the current Medicare predicament head-on, delving into the fundamental issues surrounding the reorganization of the system: whether to allocate Medicare's growing financial load to current workers in the form of higher taxes, shift the onus to future generations, or shortchange both the expectations and care of present recipients by substantially cutting benefits. This volume assembles a group of the most highly respected analysts of health issues to consider the economic forces impacting the surging health care market.

Written for the general reader and offering innovative ideas for policy revision along with critical new data on health care economics, this comprehensive volume provides a timely and thoughtful deliberation on the precarious future of Medicare.

Available as NBER working paper 6642.

This preliminary report analyzes the spread of health technology in 16 nations with widely divergent health care systems, using treatment of heart attacks as a case study.

For this report, the Technology Evaluation Center, an AHCPR Evidence-based Practice Center of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, conducted a systematic review of the evidence from randomized controlled trials on the relative effectiveness of alternative strategies for androgen suppression as treatment of advanced prostate cancer.

Prostate cancer is a disease of older men, and is second only to lung cancer in cancer mortality for men. For 1998, it was estimated that 184,500 new cases of prostate cancer would be diagnosed, and 39,200 men would die of prostate cancer that year.

In 1994, the total Medicare expenditure for treatment of prostate cancer was $1,411,687,900. Of the total, $477,851,000 was for androgen suppression therapy using luteinizing hormone-releasing hormone (LHRH) agonists. The prevalence of prostate cancer, and the expenditures for its treatment, are likely to increase with the aging of the population and the trend to earlier detection of the disease.

Three key issues are addressed in the report:

Two supplementary analyses were also conducted for each key question:

Background & Aims: Gastrin is a putative promoter of colorectal carcinomas. The aim of this study was to evaluate the temporal relationship between gastrinemia and development of colorectal malignancy.

Methods: We conducted a nested case-control study among 128,992 subscribers to a health maintenance program who had participated in a multiphasic health checkup between 1964 and 1969. Serum had been frozen since the checkup and the cohort followed up for cancer. Of 1881 incident colorectal carcinoma cases, 250 were randomly selected; 1 control without cancer was matched to each case by age, sex, education, and date of serum collection. Stored sera were tested for Helicobacter pylori immunoglobulin G and for gastrin and glycine-extended gastrin.

Results: Verified cases included 166 colon cancers, 58 rectal cancers, and 9 with cancer in both locations. A mean of 15.3 years had elapsed between serum collection and diagnosis of cancer. Median gastrin levels were similar in cases and controls (41.7 vs. 40.7 pg/mL). However, a gastrin level above normal was associated with increased risk for colorectal malignancy (odds ratio, 3.9; 95% confidence interval, 1.5-9.8). If this association is causal, 8.6% of colorectal cancers could be attributed to high serum gastrin level.

Conclusions: Hypergastrinemia is associated with an increased risk of colorectal carcinoma.

For over a decade, the National Bureau of Economic Research has sponsored the Economics of Aging Program, under the direction of David A. Wise. The program addresses issues that affect the well-being of individuals as they age and a society that is composed increasingly of older people.

Within the next twenty years, an unprecedented proportion of Americans will be over sixty-five. New research in the economics of aging is an essential element of understanding what the future holds for this aging population. Inquiries in the Economics of Aging presents both empirical papers that consider questions that are fundamental to public policy and more theoretical contributions that lay new groundwork for future research in the economics of aging.

Inquiries in the Economics of Aging provides a timely overview of some of the most important questions facing researchers on aging and outlines new techniques and models that may help to answer these questions. This important volume will be of great interest to specialists and policy makers as it paves the way for future analysis.

For over a decade, the National Bureau of Economic Research has sponsored the Economics of Aging Program, under the direction of David A. Wise. The program addresses issues that affect the well-being of individuals as they age and a society that is composed increasingly of older people.

Within the next twenty years, an unprecedented proportion of Americans will be over sixty-five. New research in the economics of aging is an essential element of understanding what the future holds for this aging population. Inquiries in the Economics of Aging presents both empirical papers that consider questions that are fundamental to public policy and more theoretical contributions that lay new groundwork for future research in the economics of aging.

Inquiries in the Economics of Aging provides a timely overview of some of the most important questions facing researchers on aging and outlines new techniques and models that may help to answer these questions. This important volume will be of great interest to specialists and policy makers as it paves the way for future analysis.