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In this article, we describe the package twostep, a bundle of programs to perform analyses of hierarchical data applying the two-step approach. We consider a two-level data setup in which "microlevel" units are nested within "macrolevel" units. One-step models (which can be fit using, for example, mixed) are the most common approach to modeling two-level data. The two-step approach is an alternative in which parameters associated with microlevel and macrolevel predictors are estimated separately for each level. It can be used as an alternative to one-step models if the estimand is a cross-level interaction. We also show how the two-step approach usefully complements one-step approaches by providing exploratory data analysis, descriptive graphs, and regression diagnostics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pioneering scholarship links retrospective childhood conditions to mature adult health. We distinctively provide critical evidence with prospective state-of-the-art measures of parent income observed multiple times during childhood in the 1970s to 1990s. Using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we analyze six health outcomes (self-rated health, heart attack, stroke, life-threatening chronic conditions, non-life-threatening chronic conditions, and psychological distress) among 40- to 65-year-olds. Parent relative income rank has statistically and substantively significant relationships with five of six outcomes. The relationships with heart attack, stroke, and life-threatening chronic conditions are particularly strong. Parent income rank performs slightly better than alternative prospective and retrospective measures. At the same time, we provide novel validation on which retrospective measures (i.e., father's education) perform almost as well as prospective measures. Furthermore, we inform several perennial debates about how relative versus absolute income and other measures of socioeconomic status and social class influence health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented for this issue of "Sociological Methods & Research" which includes articles about sequence analysis, an optimal matching algorithm, and a variant of the so-called Hamming distance substitution.