Purpose Existing algorithms for predicting suicide risk rely solely on data from electronic health records, but such models could be improved through the incorporation of publicly available socioeconomic data – such as financial, legal, life event and sociodemographic data. The purpose of this study is to understand the complex ethical and privacy implications of incorporating sociodemographic data within the health context. This paper presents results from a survey exploring what the general public’s knowledge and concerns are about such publicly available data and the appropriateness of using it in suicide risk prediction algorithms. Design/methodology/approach A survey was developed to measure public opinion about privacy concerns with using socioeconomic data across different contexts. This paper presented respondents with multiple vignettes that described scenarios situated in medical, private business and social media contexts, and asked participants to rate their level of concern over the context and what factor contributed most to their level of concern. Specific to suicide prediction, this paper presented respondents with various data attributes that could potentially be used in the context of a suicide risk algorithm and asked participants to rate how concerned they would be if each attribute was used for this purpose. Findings The authors found considerable concern across the various contexts represented in their vignettes, with greatest concern in vignettes that focused on the use of personal information within the medical context. Specific to the question of incorporating socioeconomic data within suicide risk prediction models, the results of this study show a clear concern from all participants in data attributes related to income, crime and court records, and assets. Data about one’s household were also particularly concerns for the respondents, suggesting that even if one might be comfortable with their own being used for risk modeling, data about other household members is more problematic. Originality/value Previous studies on the privacy concerns that arise when integrating data pertaining to various contexts of people’s lives into algorithmic and related computational models have approached these questions from individual contexts. This study differs in that it captured the variation in privacy concerns across multiple contexts. Also, this study specifically assessed the ethical concerns related to a suicide prediction model and determining people’s awareness of the publicness of select data attributes, as well as which of these data attributes generated the most concern in such a context. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to pursue this question.
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Public concerns and connected and automated vehicles: safety, privacy, and data security
One dimension of the emerging politics of connected and automated vehicles (CAVs) is the development of public concerns over their societal implications and associated policy issues. This study uses original survey data from the United States to contribute to the anticipation of future policy and political issues for CAVs. Several studies have surveyed the public regarding CAVs; however, there are few studies that highlight the multidimensional public concerns that CAVs will most likely bring. The study breaks down the concept of “public” by showing that the demographic variables of gender, age, race, ethnicity, income, location (rural, suburban, urban), and political ideology (conservative, moderate, liberal) are significantly associated with three of the most salient public concerns to date (safety, privacy, and data security). Furthermore, the effects of demographic variables also vary across the type of policy issue. For example, women tend to be more concerned about safety than their male counterparts, and Hispanics (Latinx) tend to be more concerned about privacy than non-Hispanics. The research shows how the social scientific analysis of the “politics” of CAVs will require attention to the variegated connections between different types of public concern and different demographic variables.
more » « less- Award ID(s):
- 1743772
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10488140
- Publisher / Repository:
- Humanities and Social Sciences Communications
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Humanities and Social Sciences Communications
- Volume:
- 9
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 2662-9992
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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What is the role of experts and their expertise in the context of trans-science, in which issues that are raised in scientific terms cannot be answered by science alone? This article examines the discourses and practices around safety of low-dose exposure to radiation in the ongoing aftermath of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident in Japan in 2011. Following the nuclear fallout, scientific experts and STS scholars in Japan debated what forms of science communication were adequate to address the situation. Ethnographic research and textual analysis of their debates show a shift in emphasis on the role of experts from cultivating ‘public understanding of science’ for the sake of science and policy to an ‘expert understanding of the public’ for the sake of the public and its diverse everyday concerns. Two forms of expertise are emerging: ‘co-expertise’ and ‘intra-mediary expertise’. Both are parts of a transition from a paternalistic form of expertise to one that acknowledges the need to engage the public to address issues of scientific uncertainty. However, co-expertise ultimately upholds the existing political structures that shape risk governance, while intra-mediary expertise engages those often excluded from current structures of accountability. Discussion of the potentials and limitations of emerging forms of expertise in Japan show that epistemic justice is not enough. Civic justice that acknowledges diverse publics and their needs must be upheld in the uncertain sphere between science, politics, and everyday life.
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Farjam, Mike (Ed.)more » « less
Campaign contributions are a staple of congressional life. Yet, the search for tangible effects of congressional donations often focuses on the association between contributions and votes on congressional bills. We present an alternative approach by considering the relationship between money and legislators’ speech. Floor speeches are an important component of congressional behavior, and reflect a legislator’s policy priorities and positions in a way that voting cannot. Our research provides the first comprehensive analysis of the association between a legislator’s campaign donors and the policy issues they prioritize with congressional speech. Ultimately, we find a robust relationship between donors and speech, indicating a more pervasive role of money in politics than previously assumed. We use a machine learning framework on a new dataset that brings together legislator metadata for all representatives in the US House between 1995 and 2018, including committee assignments, legislative speech, donation records, and information about Political Action Committees. We compare information about donations against other potential explanatory variables, such as party affiliation, home state, and committee assignments, and find that donors consistently have the strongest association with legislators’ issue-attention. We further contribute a procedure for identifying speech and donation events that occur in close proximity to one another and share meaningful connections, identifying the proverbial needles in the haystack of speech and donation activity in Congress which may be cases of interest for investigative journalism. Taken together, our framework, data, and findings can help increase the transparency of the role of money in politics.
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Abstract All 50 U.S. states now have some type of Antibullying law on the books, and since the initial passage of these bills, many states are now moving into the next phase of policy implementation by reforming and updating their initial legislation. While the initial adoption phase in most states was of low salience and noncontroversial for the public, there is now a more politically divisive debate surrounding the topic: enumerating the laws to protect specific groups. We discuss the use of Antibullying policies around the country along with the political debate over enumeration. Empirically, we examine public attitudes toward adding enumerated protections to existing Antibullying laws for various groups. Using a survey experiment from the 2016 Cooperative Congressional Election Study, we find that public support for enumeration depends on both the group characteristics considered for protection and individuals' ideology.
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Abstract Most people in the United States recognize the reality of climate change and are concerned about its consequences, yet climate change is a low priority relative to other policy issues. Recognizing that belief in climate change does not necessarily translate to prioritizing climate policy, we examine psychological factors that may boost or inhibit prioritization. We hypothesized that perceived social norms from people’s own political party influence their climate policy prioritization beyond their personal belief in climate change. In Study 1, a large, diverse sample of Democratic and Republican participants (
N = 887) reported their prioritization of climate policy relative to other issues. Participants’ perceptions of their political ingroup’s social norms about climate policy prioritization were the strongest predictor of personal climate policy prioritization—stronger even than participants’ belief in climate change, political orientation, environmental identity, and environmental values. Perceptions of political outgroup norms did not predict prioritization. In Study 2 (N = 217), we experimentally manipulated Democratic and Republican descriptive norms of climate policy prioritization. Participants’ prioritization of climate policy was highest when both the political ingroup and the outgroup prioritized climate policy. Ingroup norms had a strong influence on personal policy prioritization whereas outgroup norms did not. These findings demonstrate that, beyond personal beliefs and other individual differences, ingroup social norms shape the public’s prioritization of climate change as a policy issue.
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01110-x
