Discuss the fundamental explanatory factors that contribute to differences in influence. Can influence be used to acquire more influence?  Discuss the possibilities and limits of valuing influence. the government becomes legitimate in the political system?  Are there any cycles of political ideology to form one political system?  Is it possible that a revolutionary ideology becomes the reigning ideology of the next political period?  Is influence measurable? Does the degree of modernity influence the distribution of political resources and skills? Can history influence the option of other countries in political consideration?  Are different stages of development tend to generate differences in simulating cleavage and coalition?

Discuss the role of the Electoral College in our democratic system. Why do we have to use the Electoral College (think Constitution!!) How has it changed from the original language in the US Constitution?  Discuss thoroughly how the Electoral College functions today.  Include in your essay the following: how are Electors chosen? How many are chosen (both at the national and state level)? Where and when do they cast their votes? How many Electoral votes are needed to obtain the presidency? What happens if no one candidate gets the necessary number of votes to win the presidency (what’s the backup plan?)??  In your opinion, should the US keep the Electoral College? Why or why not?

To examine the effect of occupational chemical exposure on the occurrence of bladder cancer, a study was done in 2015 using data from 1980 to 2014. In 1970, a total of 3080 exposed men and 4051 unexposed men were classified using type-of-job and union records (all the men were members of a particular union). All men were between 25 and 34 years old when the study began. No cases occurred before age 40. Data on smoking (a known strong independent risk factor for bladder cancer) showed that 1019 exposed and 1349 unexposed men were active smokers during the study period. The following 2×2 table summarizes the results:

a)  What kind of study was done here (be as precise as possible)?

b)  Calculate an appropriate relative measure of frequency. Calculate the AR%. If approximately 0.002% of men in the US are exposed to this occupational chemical, what is the PAR%? Briefly interpret all measures you calculate.

c)  Another study that looked specifically at the smoking –> bladder cancer association examined 400 men with bladder cancer and 990 age and race/ethnicity matched men without this condition. The findings of this study are summarized in the table below.

d)  What kind of study was done here?

e)  Calculate an appropriate relative measure of frequency. Assuming that, in the US adult male population, 30% are smokers, what is the PAR%? Compare these values to the occupational chemical exposure values above. Which is the stronger bladder carcinogen, smoking or chemical exposure?

f)  Race/ethnicity is known to be an independent risk factor for bladder cancer.  In this study there were about 50% whites, 30% Blacks, and 20% Asians.  Further, 15% of the study population self-identified as being of Hispanic ethnicity. Given this information, would you need to stratify the crude table shown above and, if so, into how many strata?

g)  In the occupational study, the researchers failed to take smoking into account as a potential confounding variable when they reported their results. Given the other information available from this problem, is this likely to be a major error here? Why or why not? Draw a simple directed acyclic graph that summarizes your answer.

h)  Despite every effort, there were men lost to follow-up.  What would need to be true for loss to follow-up bias to be a major issue?

i)  If in the general US male population, the risk of bladder cancer in men 40-65 is roughly 2.0 per 10,000 per year, is there anything striking about the findings of the occupational study displayed in the table (besides the relative measure of association) that should greatly concern you?

Discuss how epidemiology is used in evaluating the efficacy of both health services and programs for screening and early detection of disease. How is epidemiology used in the development of health policy? Specifically focuses on prevention policies (COVID-19), risk assessment, and health policy law and ethics. What are some major ethical and professional issues facing epidemiology and public health?