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Program News | Program News Archive
Lori Hunter was an invited panelist at a conference organized by the Steinbrenner Institute for Environmental Education and Research at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh (Nov 9-10). The conference focused U.S. carrying capacity within three main topics: 1. Measures of U.S. resource consumption, including rates, amounts and origins of the resources. 2. Measures of U.S. food production and implications of population growth 3. Measures of impacts of population growth on resources and quality of life.
Population Program graduate students actively participated in this year’s Southern Demographic Association’s annual meeting held from October 22-24 in Galveston, Texas. Justin Denney presented “The Impact of Health Indicators and Household Formations on Suicide Mortality in the United States;” Bethany Everett presented “Expectational Life Outlooks and Educational Achievement: Examining the Role of Neighborhood,” and “Education Differentials in Mortality;” and Jeff Dennis presented, “Exploration of Factors Contributing to the Weathering Hypothesis in Low Birth Weight Using Nationally Representative U.S. Data.” The presentations were as insightful as they were well received. Importantly, the Department of Sociology, the Population Program, the Graduate School, and individual faculty grants generously provided travel support.
Jane Menken's recent laureate honor was highlighted in the Oct 13, 2009, edition of Inside CU. Her award was also featured in the October CU Faculty and Staff Newsletter.
Liam Downey's research on family structure and environmental inequality was featured in this week's edition of Inside CU: click here.
Christina Sue spent last week at Princeton University as part of an international research team conducting an unprecedented survey on race in four Latin American countries - Mexico, Brazil, Peru, and Colombia.
The University of Colorado Population Center (CUPC) and Population Program recently funded five outstanding developmental grants totaling $30,000.
These awards represent an invaluable way to support junior and senior faculty, fund graduate students, bridge programs, and encourage interdisciplinary research. These proposals grapple with central demographic issues and are quite likely to result in cutting-edge research contributions. The CUPC Developmental Grant Review Committee—composed of Fred Pampel and Tim Wadsworth—made the following awards:
- Jason Boardman, Department of Sociology: The Integration of Genome-Wide Data into Social Demographic Research
- Lori Hunter, Department of Sociology: The Reciprocality of Social and Environmental Well-Being: Reforestation in Rural Kenya
- Fernando Riosmena, Department of Geography: International Migration and the Informal Economy in Latin America
- Sanyu Mojola, Department of Sociology: Understanding the Role of Transitions to Adulthood in Shaping HIV Risk among African Americans
- Stef Mollborn, Department of Sociology and Paula Fomby, Department of Sociology (CU-Denver): The Transition to School among Children of Teen Parents: The Reciprocality of Social and Environmental Well-Being: Reforestation in Rural Kenya
The Population Program expects to make similar awards next year.
The latest "Arts and Sciences Magazine" contains an article of special interest which focuses on the work of Liam Downey and Brian Hawkins on environmental inequality: click here.
Population Program Summer Courses
For the 4th consecutive year, the Population Program organized its University of Colorado Population Center (CUPC) summer graduate demography short course, June 17-19. We rotate the topics each year to: address central demographic issues, relate to our signature themes, address new and emerging areas of research, and correspond with CUPC faculty affiliates' interests and areas of expertise.
This summer, CUPC affiliates Fernando Riosmena (Geography) and Jani Little (Computing and Research Services, IBS) organized, and, with Dan Powers (University of Texas), co-taught Longitudinal Data Analysis: Hazard Models, which follows courses taught in previous years on environmental demography (2008), biodemography (2007), and economic demography (2006). For more information about our short courses, please visit our website: http://www.colorado.edu/ibs/pop/short_courses.html.
This year's course provided a thorough and intensive introduction to the general family of methods dealing with time-dependent data, including several survival analysis techniques taught by Dan Powers (who, in the words of a short course participant, "explained complex statistics in a technical yet comprehensive manner"). The instructors have provided online access to all class materials (lectures, notes, data, and code in both Stata and R) through the course website. This enables students to revisit the topics any time in the future and to practice the techniques with their own research. Many students remarked that these materials will be an excellent resource for their future research endeavors.
Demography short courses, like this one, provide terrific opportunities to offer additional specialized training for faculty, postdoctoral fellows, and research associates, and, at the same time, they help to attract graduate students into population research. In addition, they encourage collaboration and interaction among faculty and students from around the country and between NICHD-funded centers.
This course drew on the expertise of multiple instructors from various universities to cover such specialized topics as piece-wise exponential models, multi-level hazard models, and multivariate hazard rate decomposition techniques. Approximately 35 students attended the course and represented a wide range of disciplines-including demography, economics, geography, sociology, gerontology, education, political science, public health, and agriculture-and universities-including Brown University, the University of Pennsylvania, Florida State University, University of Massachusetts-Boston, University of California-Irvine, Rice University, and the University of Wisconsin. In addition, over 15 students from CU-Boulder completed the course.
Lori Hunter has recently been elected to the council of the American Sociological Association's (ASA) Section on Population for a 3-year term.
Population Program graduate student Justin Denney received the CU-Boulder Graduate School Student Research and Creative Works Award, 2009.
Population Program Participation at the 2009 PAA Meetings
The Population Program had an outstanding showing at this year’s 2009 Population Association Annual Meeting in Detroit, Michigan, April 29 through May 2. Eight faculty, one research associate, one postdoctoral fellow, and four graduate students chaired four sessions, were a discussant in one session, gave six presentations, and gave four poster presentations. Participants included Tania Barham, Casey Blalock, Jason Boardman, Justin Denney, Jeff Dennis, Bethany Everett, Jane Menken, Sanyu Mojola, Stefanie Mollborn, Fred Pampel, Fernando Riosmena, Rick Rogers, Daniel Sahleyesus, and Jill Williams.
The Population Program was exceptionally well-represented—with faculty, graduate students, undergraduate students, and research associates—at the Southwestern Sociological Association (SSA) annual meetings, which were held in Denver, April 9-11, 2009. Jeff Dennis chaired the session, Social Issues and Policies, and also presented “Gender and Race/Ethnic Differences in the Delay of Health Care.” Rob Kemp presented “Demographic Determinants of Attention Deficit Hyperpactivity Disorder Diagnosis.” Brian Bandle, Nizam Khan, and J.T. Young presented “A Comparison of Health Status and Healthcare Access in Four Southeast Asian Countries.” Justin Denney presented “Investigating the Effects of Household Composition and the Family on Suicide Mortality in the United States.” Justin’s outstanding paper won the association’s doctoral-level graduate student paper award. Janet Huber Lowry, SSA President and awards committee chair, remarked that this year Justin’s excellent submission emerged from especially tough competition. (see next news item for paper abstract)
Justin Denney was awarded the Outstanding Doctoral
Student Paper Award by the Southwestern Sociological Association for his
paper entitled "Household Composition and Suicide Mortality in the
United States" at the Southwestern Social Science Association Meetings
in Denver, April 7-11, 2009. Here is Justin receiving the award from Janet Huber Lowry:
Paper Abstract: Suicide remains a leading cause of premature death in the United States and has yet to be examined by detailed household formations, despite theoretical links to domestic support systems. I first propose several hypotheses based on theories of social integration that posit decreased risk of suicide mortality for persons living in supportive household configurations with greater social relationships. Next, I use individual and household data on over 800,000 adults from the National Health Interview Survey Linked Mortality File to examine the effects of household composition on individual risk of suicide. In support of the hypotheses, shared frailty Weibull hazard models show that household composition is associated with suicide risk despite controls for important individual level predictors. Persons residing in married couple households with and without children under age 18 are at a decreased risk of suicide mortality but so are persons in unmarried adult households that include other non-child relatives and unmarried adult households with children under the age of 18. Further, persons in households that include unrelated adults experience increased risk of suicide. These results reveal the structural importance of household configuration on the social integrative forces that contribute to an individual’s risk of suicide mortality, a major preventable cause of death.
Justin Denney was awarded the *2008-2009 CU Retired Faculty Association (CURFA) Graduate Student Research and Creative Work Award*. The award, which is determined by faculty review, acknowledges outstanding research or creative work by CU-Boulder graduate students across all disciplines.
Lori Hunter attended a meeting in Beijing at the Institute of Population Research at Peking University, November 20-22, 2008. The meeting was on “Urbanization, Environment, and Development” in China and she attended on behalf of the journal Population & Environment. The journal will be publishing a special issue on the associations between demographic dynamics and environmental factors in China based on research presented at the Beijing symposium.
Lori Hunter was interviewed for "Earth and Sky," a syndicated radio broadcast that plays on a global network of 1600 radio outlets. The broadcast explores her collaborative research on HIV/AIDS and natural resources in rural South Africa, and over the next couple of months, the interview will be heard 12 million times across the globe. Podcast here..
The University of Colorado Population Center (CUPC) and Population Program recently funded five outstanding developmental grants, which totaled approximately $30,000.
These awards represent an invaluable way to support junior and senior faculty, fund graduate students, bridge programs, and encourage interdisciplinary research. The proposals grapple with central demographic issues and are quite likely to result in cutting-edge research contributions. The CUPC and Population Program Developmental Grant Review Committee – which consisted of Lori Hunter and Jane Menken – made the following awards to CUPC and Population Program affiliates (with their project titles in parentheses):
- Francisca M. Antman, Department of Economics (How Does Adult Child Migration Affect Elderly Health? Evidence from Mexico);
- Jason Boardman, Department of Sociology (Gene Environment Interplay in the Development of Antisocial Behavior);
- Andrei Rogers, Department of Geography (The Indirect Estimation of Migration);
- Tim Wadsworth, Rick Rogers, and Fred Pampel, Department of Sociology (Individual and Contextual Factors Contributing to Suicide Mortality); and
- Daniel Sahleyesus Telake, Research Associate, Population Program, IBS (Monitoring Cause of Death Using Hospital Records in Addis Ababa).
The Population Program expects to make similar awards next year.
IBS was well-represented at the Add Health Users Conference at NIH in late July. Jason Boardman was a coauthor for one of the plenary presentations, "Genetic Studies of Substance Use in Add Health: Progress and Pitfalls." Two papers by other IBS folks were presented in the session called "Sexuality: Contributors to Risk and Well-being": "The Correlates and Consequences of Incongruence in Parents' and Teens' Reports of Teens' Sexual Activity" by Stefanie Mollborn and Bethany Everett, and "The Dynamic Relationships between Sexual Minority Status and Health: A Longitudinal Analysis" by Bethany Everett. Bethany's presentation was especially well-received and generated a lot of interest from researchers and funding agencies.
Rick Rogers taught “Demography of Adult Morbidity and Mortality” through the Southampton Statistical Sciences Research Institute (S3RI) at the University of Southampton, England, June 11-13, 2008. Course participants included graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and faculty, and staff members from government agencies, including Imperial College, University of York, University of Southampton, the Department of Health in Northern Ireland, and the Office for National Statistics.
Rick was also invited to present “Sex Differentials in Mortality: The Importance of Demographic, Socioeconomic, and Behavioral Factors,” to the Division of Social Statistics, University of Southampton, England, June 10, 2008.
Andrei Rogers has retired from teaching CU. To see photos from Andrei's retirement party, go to Social Gatherings and click on the link to his Power Point Slide Show.
Rick Rogers attended the National Research Council’s Committee on National Statistics workshop, "Vital Data for National Needs," held at the National Academies, Washington, DC, April 30, 2008. Workshop participants discussed the current and future state of the vital statistics system. Rick presented, “Use of Vital Statistics Data to Identify Mortality Trends,” which demonstrated how crucial vital statistics data are in guiding research and making policy decisions.
Rick Rogers presented “Sex Differentials in Mortality: The Importance of Demographic, Socioeconomic, and Behavioral Factors” to the Center for Population Dynamics (CePoD), Arizona State University, April 26, 2008.
Rick Rogers participated in a review of population forecasts for the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Aging Society Network at the MacArthur Foundation, Chicago, IL, April 22, 2008.
The Population Program had a superb showing at this year’s 2008 Population Association Annual Meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana, April 16-18. Nine faculty members, four postdoctoral fellows and research associates, and four graduate students chaired three sessions, were discussants in two sessions, gave nine presentations, and gave three poster presentations. Participants included Francisca Antman, Tania Barham, Jason Boardman, Justin Denney, Jeff Dennis, Bethany Everett, Lori Hunter, Nizam Khan, Peter Lovegrove, Robert McNown, Jane Menken, Stefanie Mollborn, Georges Reniers, Fernando Riosmena, Rick Rogers, Olumide Taiwo, and Jill Williams.
Rick Rogers presented “Health Disparities in the United States: The Effects of Socioeconomic Status and Race/Ethnicity on Health and Mortality” to Department of Preventive Medicine and Community Health, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, November 29, 2007.
Rick Rogers presented “Social Disparities and Health: Sex Differentials in Mortality” to Cells to Society (C2S): The Center on Social Disparities and Health at the Institute for Policy Research, Northwestern University, October 29, 2007. The presentation was also videocast live to the Northwestern Medical School and the Evanston Northwestern Healthcare Research Institute. This presentation was based on research conducted with Bethany Everett, Jarron Saint Onge, Patrick Krueger, and Bob Hummer. It was especially useful for Rick to visit Northwestern to find ways to bridge activities between our University of Colorado Population Center and their new NICHD-funded C2S center.
Population Program graduate students actively participated in this year’s Southern Demographic Association’s annual meeting held from October 11-13, 2007 in Birmingham, Alabama. Justin Denney presented “Forecasting Adult Survival;” Jeff Dennis presented “Characteristics of Health Care Use and Delay of Medical Care: The Effects of Sex, Race, Ethnicity, and Marital Status;” and Bethany Everett presented “Trends in Educational Attainment by Sex, Race/Ethnicity, and Nativity in the United States, 1989-2005.” The presentations were as insightful as they were well received. Importantly, the Graduate School, Population Program, and individual grants generously provided travel support.
The University of Colorado Population Center (CUPC) recently funded six outstanding developmental grants, which total over $40,000. These awards represent an invaluable way to support junior and senior faculty, fund graduate students, bridge programs, and encourage interdisciplinary research. These proposals were remarkably competitive, grapple with central demographic issues, and are likely to result in cutting-edge and significant research contributions. The CUPC Developmental Grant Review Committee – which consisted of Jason Boardman, Andrei Rogers, and Richard Rogers – made the following awards to center affiliates (with their project titles in parentheses): Paula Fomby, Sociology, CU-Denver, and Stefanie Mollborn, Sociology, (Explaining Racial and Ethnic Differences in the Effect of Family Instability on Adolescents’ Behavior), John Hewitt, IBG, and Zygmunt Frajzyngier, Linguistics (Northern Cameroon Language and Genetics Project), David Leblang, Political Science (Social Networks and International Immigration 1960-2004), Ying Lu, Political Science and Sociology (De-convolution Methods with an Application in Verbal Autopsy), Georges Reniers, Population Program, IBS (Partner Selection in Times of HIV/AIDS in Rural South Africa), and Fernando Riosmena, Geography (Evaluating the SES Health Gradients of Mexicans, Migration Selection and Acculturation Hypotheses Using Clinically-Reported Measures).
The Center expects to make similar annual awards over the next several years.
Richard Rogers and Jarron Saint Onge are featured in Top Stories on the July 9, 2007 CU News Center. Results of their study, "Major League Baseball Career Length in the 20th Century," are presented and they and their co-authors are quoted. Article (pdf)...
Short Course on Biodemography, June 11-13, 2007: The CU Population Center with support from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the Institute of Behavioral Science, the Institute for Behavioral Genetics, and the Department of Sociology, just completed a three-day short course on the topic of Biodemography. Jason Boardman organized the course, which included a review and discussion of current substantive contributions in the literature, instruction on the collection and use of biomarkers in demographic research, and methodological training in the statistical analysis of biosocial interactions. Faculty for this workshop included Eileen Crimmins (University of Southern California), Noreen Goldman (Princeton University), Maxine Weinstein (Georgetown University), and Tom Johnson, Matt McQueen, Michael Stallings, and Deqing Wu (Institute for Behavioral Genetics, University of Colorado). Students were comprised of graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, and junior faculty from 20 universities across the country. More information can be found by visiting the course website: http://www.colorado.edu/ibs/cupc/short_courses/biodemography/.
Richard Rogers presented "Sex Differentials in Mortality," to the Department of Demography and Organizational Studies and the Institute for Demographic and Socioeconomic Research at the University of Texas at San Antonio, June 5, 2007.
This research -- conducted with Bethany Everett, Jarron Saint Onge, Patrick Krueger, and Bob Hummer -- employs the third round of the National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey (NHANES III) linked to the National Death Index (NDI) and life tables with covariates to examine sex differences in mortality. We build on previous literature by expanding the theoretical perspective; analyzing a current nationally representative data set; examining the effects of multiple risk factors; and presenting life tables with covariates. Whereas both sexes have witnessed mortality improvements over time, males have realized relatively greater gains. We find that both sexes realize a marriage survival advantage. Compared to men, women's lower propensity to be married, employed, earn high incomes, and engage in regular physical activity reduces the sex gap in mortality, but women's greater propensity to attend religious services and abstain from smoking widens the sex gap in mortality. These results contribute to the national discussion of health disparities; are rich with implications for family, health care, and pensions; and provide insight into life expectancy forecasts.
Richard Rogers gave a presentation, "Obesity and Mortality", on May 1, 2007 at the Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI) in the Hague. The presentation presented historical patterns in adult obesity, revealed how obesity has changed over time for select subpopulations, and highlighted recent trends in the effects of obesity on mortality.
Richard Rogers taught a short course in April, 2007, "The Demography of Adult Morbidity and Mortality", through the Southampton Statistical Sciences Research Institute (S3RI) at the University of Southampton in England. The course was attended by graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, staff members from government agencies, and individuals from private organizations.
This three-day course tackled such crucial questions as: Are health disparities widening over time and place? Are individuals really living longer and in better health? How does socioeconomic status operate to improve health and reduce mortality? Will life expectancies in more developed countries continue to increase over time, and if so, by how much? Overall, the course focused on ways to improve health and lengthen life.
Richard Rogers was invited to Texas A&M University, September 18-20, 2006 to consult with faculty and administrators about building a new interdisciplinary population center. Such interactions further enhance our University of Colorado Population Center's goal of bridging departments, programs, centers, institutes, and universities.
The University of Colorado Population Center (CUPC) recently funded four developmental grants, totaling $26,467.00. These awards represent an invaluable way to support junior and senior faculty, fund graduate students, bridge programs, and encourage interdisciplinary research.
The CUPC Developmental Grant Review Committee - which consisted of Andrei Rogers, Jason Boardman, and Richard Rogers - made the following awards: Jill Williams, for her project entitled "Temporary Female Labor Migration and Household Survival Strategies in Rural South Africa"; Jani Little, for her project entitled "GIS and Contextual Data: An Archive for Population Research"; Jason Boardman, for his project entitled "Psychological Resiliency as a Heritable Characteristic"; and Lori Hunter for an exploratory trip to consider potential future demographic research projects.
As part of the African Population Studies Research and Training Program Jani Little, Jane Menken, Enid Schatz, and Jill Williams delivered a short course on Longitudinal Data Management and Analysis to twelve students from the University of Colorado, Brown University, the University of the Witwatersrand (Johannesburg, South Africa), and five interns from the African Population and Health Research Center (Nairobi, Kenya). The course took place June 12-23 at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Students learned and used STATA to analyze a sub-sample of the Agincourt Demographic and Health Surveillance System, which has been collected since 1992 in a small rural area of South Africa. Benjamin Clark, data manager for the Agincourt Demographic and Health Surveilance System (ADHSS), assisted instructors and participants as they analyzed the ADHSS for research projects developed during the short course. Lori Hunter, Randall Kuhn, and Jarron Saint Onge also contributed to the course and many of the faculty from IBS consulted with the students during their stay.
Several faculty from IBS participated in the 4th Annual "Wits-Brown-Colorado-APHRC colloquium on Emerging Population Issues" held May 21-25 in Nairobi, Kenya. Funded by the Hewlett Foundation, the colloquium is designed to foster collaboration across participating institutions through the sharing of information on ongoing research, recent findings and plans for the future. The network also aims to strengthen advanced academic training in population studies within sub-Saharan Africa and a special session was held on the topic. This year's colloquium was hosted by the African Population and Health Research Center (APHRC), and prior to the meeting, participants had the opportunity to learn about APHRC's research on population-health issues in sub-Saharan Africa, and also make field site visits to APHRC's demographic surveillance sites in 2 Nairobi slums. Participating in the colloquium were Jane Menken, Jason Boardman, Lori Hunter, Randall Kuhn, Richard Rogers, Enid Schatz, and Georges Reniers. Jill Williams and Steve Graham also served important roles on the organizing committee.
Jane Menken with APHRC director Alex Ezeh.
Richard Rogers, Director of the Population Program, was a recipient of the Excellence in Research, Scholarly, and Creative Work Award from the Boulder Faculty Assembly, April 17, 2006. Emphasis for the award is placed on work of high quality that does not receive recognition through the usual channels such as interdisciplinary research, work accomplished with undergraduate students, or an integrated long-term achievement.
Jani Little and Jarron Saint Onge presented at poster sessions of the 2006 Annual Meeting of the Population Association of America in Los Angeles, California, March 30-April 1. Jani Little presented "What Can the Age Composition of a Population Tell Us about the Age Composition of Its Out- Migrants?" and Jarron Saint Onge presented "Baseball Career Length in the Twentieth-Centruy: The Effects of Age, Performance and Era."
Congratulations to Lisa Jordan, who received first place from the Population Geography Specialty Group at the Annual Meetings of the Association of American Geographers, held in Chicago, IL March 7-11, 2006. The title of her paper, which she presented at the meetings, was: "Religion and Mortality in the United States: A Geographic Analysis."
Several Program members attended the Annual Meetings of the Association of American Geographers, held in Chicago, IL March 7-11, 2006. Rachel Silvey presented a paper "Governing Bodies: The Regulation of Indonesian Migrants at 'Terminal 3,'" and was a discussant for two sessions: Southeast Asian Migrations and Identities and Temporary Labor Migration. Monica Smith presented a paper "Unsilenced Voices: Agency and Self Empowerment Among Women Migrant Workers." Yaffa Truelove presented a paper "The Theoretical Contributions of a Feminist Political Ecology Framework," and was panelist for a Panel on Gender and Water.
Bryan Jones, Junwei Liu, Jani Little, and Andrei Rogers presented papers at a special session on the indirect estimation of migration held at the 45th Annual Meeting of the Western Regional Science Association in Santa Fe, New Mexico, February 22-25, 2006. The session was devoted to reports on work being carried out on that topic in the Program and supported by grants from the National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
The University of Colorado Population Center (CUPC) recently funded four developmental grants, which total approximately $35,000. These awards represent an invaluable way to support junior and senior faculty, fund graduate students, bridge programs, and encourage interdisciplinary research.
The CUPC Developmental Grant Review Committee - which consisted of Andrei Rogers, Jason Boardman, and Richard Rogers - made the following awards: Randy Walsh and Terra McKinnish, Economics, for their project entitled "Decomposing Neighborhood Change;" Liam Downey, Sociology, for his project entitled "Examining the Determinants of Urban Environmental Inequality in Multiple Metropolitan Areas;" Tania Barham and A. Mushfiq Mobarak, Economics, for their project entitled "Social and Economic Impacts of Electricity Provision: Evidence from the Quasi-Random Placement of Hydroelectric Plants in Brazil;" and Fred Pampel, Sociology, for his project entitled "Socioeconomic Differentiation and Cigarette Use: Changes from Youth to Adulthood."
Jarron Saint Onge, Steven Doubilet, and Richard Rogers attended this year's Southern Demographic Association's 36th annual meeting, held November 3-5 at the University of Mississippi. Jarron Saint Onge and Richard Rogers presented "Blood Pressure Measures and All-Cause Mortality." Steven Doubilet presented "From World War I to Iraq: U.S. Military Casualty Trends and Medical Advances."
Liam Downey recently won the 2005 Sociological Spectrum Best Paper of the Year Award for his article, "Assessing Environmental Inequality: How the Conclusions We Draw Vary According To the Definitions We Employ" in Sociological Spectrum Vol. 25(3).
Lisa Jordan won first place in the student paper competition at the Annual Meeting of the Great Plains/Rocky Mountain Division of the Association of American Geographers in Laramie, WY, September 22-24, 2005. The title of her paper was: "Religion and Fertility in the United States: A Geographic Analysis."
It is wonderful news that the ASA (American Sociological Association) Publications Committee approved adding Jason Boardman to the Editorial Board of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior. He will be officially on the Board as of January 1, 2006.
With Richard G. Rogers as principal investigator and director, and Jason Boardman, Lori Hunter, and Andrei Rogers as associate directors, the Research Program on Population Processes received an R21 grant from NICHD for Developmental Infrastructure for Population Research. The award is $924,089 over five years beginning July 7, 2005. Based on the merits of the thirty-year-old research program, the new Population Center will be expanding demographic research and training in the areas of migration and population distribution, health, and environmental demography.
Jane Menken gave a keynote address at the University of the Witwatersrand Faculty of Health Sciences Research Day on August 4, "Contributions of longitudinal study sites to understanding the impact of HIV/AIDS in Africa."
Jane Menken chairs the Panel on Aging in Africa of the Committee on Population at the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. The Panel held a Workshop on Aging in Africa in South Africa July 26-29. Several participants were CU researchers or CU Population Aging Center (PAC) Associates. The Workshop began in Limpopo Province with a visit to the Agincourt Health and Population Program, run by the University of the Witwatersrand and headed by PAC Associate Steve Tollman. The afternoon session included presentations of current research, most of which is being carried out as collaborations between WITS and IBS researchers. Sam Clark presented a study of the survival of AIDS orphans; WITS research and PAC Associate Mark Collinson presented work with Clark and CU undergraduate Kyle Drullinger on the high mortality of return migrants, a phenomenon they refer to as "coming home to die." Enid Schatz discussed the study of older women and their experience with AIDS that she is conducting with a WITS PhD student. WITS researcher and PAC Research Associate Wayne Twine presented research he and Lori Hunter are conducting on the impact of AIDS on environmental resource use.
The Workshop continued its meeting, with Menken as Chair, in Johannesburg at the University of the Witwatersrand. Clark presented a paper on the HIV/AIDS simulation model he is developing, which includes modules to simulate the impact of various treatment strategies. A paper by Kuhn, Menken and PAC Associate Omar Rahman on self-reported and observed health measures as predictors of subsequent mortality was presented by Menken. PAC Research Associates Alex Ezeh and Kathy Kahn also gave papers, on health and aging in Nairobi and in the Agincourt study respectively.
The Panel on Aging met July 29-30 and is preparing a report to NIH on needs for research on Aging in Africa.
