CSDE-eNews Bulletin

March 4, 2008

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ANNOUNCEMENTS FROM THE DIRECTOR: The final draft of the NIH 2007-2008 Peer Review Self-Study has been issued
CSDE WEEKLY SEMINAR: Marcia Castro -- Large-scale Development Efforts, Environmental Change, and Malaria Transmission
CSDE ANNOUNCEMENTS: Job Opening -- GIS Specialist; Ellie Brindle -- The Institute For Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington
CAMPUS SEMINARS & EVENTS OF INTEREST: Center for Statistics and the Social Sciences Seminar -- Bani Mallick; Environmental Anthropology Forum -- Karen Capuder and Leonard Squally; Walker Ames Lecture -- Nancy Cartwright; WCPC Seminar Series on Poverty and Public Policy -- Susan Lambert
FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES: National Institute on Drug Abuse Avant-Garde Award Program for HIV/AIDS Research (DP1); First round of funding for Grand Challenges Explorations for global health research
CALLS FOR PAPERS: Population Review is seeking articles that center on analytical sociology or social demography; Western Regional International Health Conference
TRAINING & EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES: Advanced Spatial Analysis workshops, Summer 2008 -- Population Research Institute; Using Secondary Data for Analysis of Marriage and Family -- ICPSR Summer Program Workshop; Welfare, Children, and Families: A Three City Study -- ICPSR Summer Program Workshop; Environmental Demography Course -- University of Colorado Population Center Summer Short Course; Post Doctoral Fellowship in Research on Fathers and Fatherhood -- Univ. of Maryland; Post Doctoral Fellowship -- Center for Research on Inequalities and the Life Course, Yale
OTHER NEWS OF INTEREST: Lecture on the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment -- James H. Jones; The Population Reference Bureau has added new content to its website

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ANNOUNCEMENTS FROM THE DIRECTOR

The final draft of the NIH 2007-2008 Peer Review Self-Study has been issued

A key step in NIH's peer review enhancement effort has been completed--the final draft of the NIH 2007-2008 Peer Review Self-Study has been submitted to Dr. Elias Zerhouni, Director of NIH, and is available at http://enhancing-peer-review.nih.gov/meetings/NIHPeerReviewReportFINALDRAFT.PDF.

The recommendations in this report include a reduction in the length of grand applications, establishment of a "Not Recommended for Resubmission" review category, and requiring a minimum percent effort for investigators on grants.

If you would like to send comments, please submit them by Monday, March 17 at:
PeerReviewRFI@mail.nih.gov . The report will be discussed this Friday morning by the PAA/APC Public Affairs Committee, and I would appreciate it if you would send any comments to me by Friday as well.

Shelly Lundberg

CSDE WEEKLY SEMINAR

Marcia Castro -- Large-scale Development Efforts, Environmental Change, and Malaria Transmission

Friday, March 7
12:30 - 2:00 PM
Parrington Hall Commons

CSDE Seminar Schedule

CSDE ANNOUNCEMENTS

Job Opening -- GIS Specialist

The Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology (CSDE) has an outstanding opportunity for a a GIS Specialist. The successful candidate will join the CSDE team of professional staff providing support for population research and training at the University of Washington. Competitive candidates will have experience in GIS including basic programming for GIS applications and web development, data management, thematic mapping, and teaching.

This person will be responsible for writing technical information on GIS and related matters for faculty, students and staff to support their use of GIS and spatial data in their research. This position will also provide consultancies and short course trainings on geospatial data presentation and may be responsible for supervising entry level GIS staff. This person will be an expert in designing effective visual presentation of results from GIS, integrating cartographic displays with more traditional charts, and working with additional visualization software.

Req #: 40501
Job Location: Seattle Campus
Job Location Detail: Raitt Hall
Closing Info: Open Until Filled
To apply, visit the UW Human Resources website and search by Req #40501.

Ellie Brindle -- The Institute For Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington

Ellie Brindle, Director, CSDE Biodemography Core
"Dried Blood Spot Collection: A Practical tool for Health Assessment"

Thursday, March 6
4:00 - 5:30 PM
2301 5th Ave. Suite 600

CAMPUS SEMINARS & EVENTS OF INTEREST

Center for Statistics and the Social Sciences Seminar -- Bani Mallick

Bani Mallick, Professor, Department of Statistics, Director, Bayesian Bioinformatics Lab, Texas A&M, College Station
"Applications of Functional Data analysis to Proteomics and Genomics Data"

Wednesday, March 5
12:30 - 1:20 PM
Denny 401

Environmental Anthropology Forum -- Karen Capuder and Leonard Squally

Karen Capuder and Leonard Squally (Nisqually and Puyallup Tribes)
"Historical Ecology of Indigenous Places in the Puget Sound Region"

Wednesday, March 5
3:30 - 5:00 PM
Denny Hall 401

Walker Ames Lecture -- Nancy Cartwright

Nancy Cartwright, Walker Ames Lecture visitor

"Evidence-Based Policy: So, What's Evidence?"
Thursday, March 6
6:30 PM
Kane Hall, Rm 120

"Evidence-Based Policy" - informal discussion
Friday, March 7
9:30 - 11:00 AM
Condon Hall 511E

"Hunting Causes and Using Them," Philosophy of Social Science Roundtable - Keynote address
Saturday, March 8
5:30 - 7:00 PM
Communications 226

Science Studies Network Colloquium (workshop discussion of two precirculated papers)
"In Praise of Representation Theory"
"The Rational Structure of Physics: What Allows for Consistency with Empirical Reality?"
Monday, March 10
12:00 - 1:30 PM
Communications 202

RSVP required: http://depts.washington.edu/ssnet/

WCPC Seminar Series on Poverty and Public Policy -- Susan Lambert

Susan Lambert, Associate Professor in the School of Social Service Administration, University of Chicago
"Passing the Buck: Employer Strategies for Transferring Risk onto Low-Skilled Jobs "

Monday, March 10
3:00 PM
Parrington Hall Commons

FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES

National Institute on Drug Abuse Avant-Garde Award Program for HIV/AIDS Research (DP1)

This program is intended to fund scientists engaged in basic, clinical, or translational research on drug abuse and HIV/AIDS. The term "avant-garde" is used to describe highly innovative approaches that have the potential to produce an unusually high impact. The proposed research should reflect ideas substantially different from those already being pursued by the investigator or others. The research proposed must be in an area described in the Trans – NIH Plan for HIV-Related Research and be drug abuse relevant but need not be in a conventional biomedical or behavioral discipline.

More information is here:
RFA-DA-08-003: 2008 NIDA Avant-Garde Award Program for HIV/AIDS Research (DP1) (RFA-DA-08-003)

Opening Submission Date: February 26, 2008
Final Application Submission/Receipt Date(s): March 26, 2008 5:00 p.m. (EST)
Peer Review Date(s): May 2008
Council Review Date(s): August 2008
Earliest Anticipated Start Date(s): September 2008

First round of funding for Grand Challenges Explorations for global health research

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced yesterday that beginning March 31, 2008, it will accept grant proposals for the first funding round of Grand Challenges Explorations, a new $100 million initiative to help scientists across the globe pursue ideas that have never before been tested for solving major health problems. The four topics for the first funding round were also announced.

Initial grants through the Explorations initiative will be $100,000 each, and projects showing success will have the opportunity to receive additional funding of $1 million or more. The initiative will use an agile, accelerated grant-making process--applications will be two pages, and preliminary data are not required. The foundation will select and award grants within approximately three months from the proposal submission deadline of May 30, 2008.

The first funding round of Grand Challenges Explorations will consider proposals in four topic areas:

Creating new ways to protect against infectious diseases: Untried or unproven approaches to protect against infectious diseases, including harnessing natural or synthetic immune responses, or eliminating the need for an effective immune response.

Creating drugs or delivery systems that limit the emergence of resistance: Innovative ideas for discovering or delivering drugs that are less likely to lose effectiveness because of resistance developing in the disease-causing agent.

Creating new ways to prevent or cure HIV infection: Innovative ideas for HIV prevention or treatment methods that fall outside current research on vaccines, antiretroviral drugs, and other biomedical and behavior-change strategies.

Exploring the basis for latency in TB: Unconventional approaches to understanding latent TB infection, with the goal of discovering new ways to identify and eliminate latent infection, and break the cycle of TB transmission.

Grant proposals for the first Explorations funding round will be accepted online at www.gcgh.org/explorations from March 31 through May 30, 2008; applicants must register intent to submit a proposal by May 15, 2008.

Once the first Explorations funding round is complete, the foundation will announce subsequent funding rounds. Topics may vary over time, to cover a range of priorities in global health research.

Full descriptions of the initial topic areas and application instructions are available at www.gcgh.org/explorations.

CALLS FOR PAPERS

Population Review is seeking articles that center on analytical sociology or social demography

Population Review, an international peer review journal of social demography, publishes articles from the fields of sociology, demography, political science, social anthropology, communication, and socio-environmental science. The journal emphasizes empirical research, focusing on analytical sociology and social demography. The journal's focus is not limited by geography. Population Review encourages submission of articles from scholars in both the developing and developed world. Population Review publishes original articles, viewpoints, research reports, and book reviews.

Send any queries/submissions to the editor via email.

Call for Abstracts: Western Regional International Health Conference, May 23-25, 2008

Simon Fraser University's Global Health Program and the Centre for International Health at the University of British Columbia are pleased to host...

The 2008 Western Regional International Health Conference
May 23-25th, 2008

Deadline is March 20th, 2008.

The 6th Annual Western Regional International Health Conference (WRIHC) will take place from May 23 to 25, 2008, on the campus of Simon Fraser University. It is a multidisciplinary conference for faculty, students, and community members across disciplines such as medicine, health education, advocacy, global health, development, and international service. The purpose is to share experiences, discuss crucial global health issues, and advance the global health community in the Pacific Northwest.

This year's theme is Meeting the Challenge: the Millennium Development Goals and Beyond is framed to encourage the discussion and evaluation of our global development agenda and its effect on the health of diverse populations. Who's left out? How far do we have to go? Join us in examining the MDGs, global health issues and the global development movement.

Seeking submissions for Oral and Poster Presentations

Invisible Populations: Who's left out of the MDGs?

Conflict and Human Rights

Environmental Change and Global Health

Global Mental Health

Global Health Presents: Creative presentations of global health issues

Submission Criteria

See the website to submit: www.sfu.ca/wrihc2008/site/submissions.html

Poster sessions are for students (or student work) only; oral presentations are open to all.

The best poster abstract submissions will be considered for oral presentations.

Abstracts must be maximum 250 words in length.

Posters should be maximum 36" X 42" (3 feet by 4 feet) and in academic format.

Submission Deadline: 20 March 2008. Applicants will be notified by April 11th.

This conference will feature an Opportunities Fair during which community organizations with a health or development focus can display their work and exchange ideas with the conference participants. Schools, NGOs, student groups, partnerships and other organizations are welcome. Exhibitors receive a complimentary conference registration for one member with the cost of a table registration of $55.

How to request a table

Go to our website at http://www.sfu.ca/wrihc2008 and click "request table."

Tables are on a first-come, first-serve basis, and locations cannot be booked.

Priority will go to non-profit groups in the event that space is limited.

Additional participants affiliated with exhibiting table are welcome to pay the student rate, to a maximum of 3 student-rate participants, and must note this on their registration.

E-MAIL SUBMISSIONS WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED.

For more information, visit www.sfu.ca/wrihc2008. (Please note that though the page is currently under construction, the abstract submission form is ready and functional.)

To print the Invitation, click here.
To print the Call for Abstracts, click here.

Contact: WRIHC2008@gmail.com
www.fhs.sfu.ca
www.cih.ubc.ca

TRAINING & EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES

Advanced Spatial Analysis workshops, Summer 2008 -- Population Research Institute

The Population Research Institute (The Pennsylvania State University) and the Center for Spatially Integrated Social Science (University of California, Santa Barbara) are offering workshops in the NICHD-funded training program in Advanced Spatial Analysis. These five-day-long workshops focus on advanced methods for research in the population sciences.

The primary audience for these advanced workshops is early-career population scientests (i.e., graduate students, post-docs, and junior faculty/researchers in demography-related disciplines) based at research institutions and population-related agencies in the United States. These workshops are for population scientists who already possess a working knowledge of geographic information systems (GIS) and spatial statistics, and who use these tools in their research.

Geographically Weighted Regression
State College, PA: The Population Research Institute (www.pop.psu.edu/)
The Pennsylvania State University, June 1–June 6, 2008

Spatial Pattern Analysis
Santa Barbara, CA: The Center for Spatially Integrated Social Science (www.csiss.org)
University of California, Santa Barbara July 13–July 18, 2008

Application Deadline: 31 March 2008

Apply online: http://www.csiss.org/GISPopSci/workshops/2008/apply/

Using Secondary Data for Analysis of Marriage and Family -- ICPSR Summer Program Workshop

July 24 & 25, 2008
Ann Arbor, MI

The National Center for Marriage Research (NCMR) will sponsor a summer workshop that focuses on analyzing marriage and family research questions using the following four data sources: Fragile Families, National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, National Survey of Family Growth, and the Survey of Income and Program Participation. The workshop will provide information about the advantages and challenges of using each data source to study marriage and family patterns and change. Data Sharing for Demographic Research at the University of Michigan will facilitate the workshop.

The target audience is graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, junior researchers, and other researchers who are interested in using the featured secondary data for the analysis of marriage and family. Participants from all disciplines are encouraged to apply. Preference will be given to minority candidates.

Participants are expected to have a basic understanding of secondary data, fundamental data analytic skills in SPSS, SAS or STATA, and a substantive interest in marriage and family.

Applicants need to include a one-page statement of their research interests and data use plans for specific datasets as well as experience using secondary data. We also require curriculum vitae. Graduate students require a letter of support from their faculty advisor. Applications will be reviewed by ICPSR and a NCMR committee. Application due date: Friday 16 May 2008.

There will be no tuition fees for participants. The NCMR will offer travel stipends for 5 students ($750 maximum) to attend the class. Preference will be given to minority candidates.

The NCMR is funded through a cooperative agreement between the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and Bowling Green State University.

For further details, click here.

Welfare, Children, and Families: A Three City Study -- ICPSR Summer Program Workshop

July 21-23
Ann Arbor, MI

This workshop will introduce interested researchers to the Three-City Study, a three-wave longitudinal survey of low-income families and children in the post-welfare reform era. The study has followed about 2,400 families in Boston, Chicago, and San Antonio since 1999, including a six-year follow-up wave completed in 2005. The study includes information on families' employment histories, income, usage of TANF and other needs-based programs, health and health insurance, as well as detailed measures of children's well-being and family functioning. An embedded developmental study conducted during the first two waves with preschool-aged children provides extensive interview data and observational data from parents and child care providers on detailed process-oriented measures.

We will discuss the study design and sampling frame, the content of the study, research questions to which the study is well-suited, and issues that users should bear in mind when working with longitudinal data.

This workshop will be of interest to researchers studying poverty, family, child development, welfare reform, women's labor force participation and income, and/or neighborhood ecology. Registered participants may suggest in advance of the workshop specific research questions or topics they would like to discuss.

For more information on the study, visit www.threecitystudy.jhu.edu.

Researchers interested in using these data to analyze issues related to child care and early education, including family self-sufficiency, will be considered for one of a limited number of monetary awards to offset travel expenses. To be considered for one of these awards, applicants must include a detailed statement summarizing their research interests in this area, as well as a letter of support from a faculty member or advisor. These awards are sponsored by Research Connections, a collaborative project funded by the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation and the Child Care Bureau, Office of Family Assistance, Administration for Children and Families in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Stipend application due date: Friday 16 May 2008.

For full details, click here.

Environmental Demography Course -- University of Colorado Population Center Summer Short Course

July 16-18, 2008
Boulder, Colorado

The course will provide an overview of the sub-discipline and several in-depth examples of central areas of research. Top scholars in the field will review both conceptual and methodological aspects of their research. In addition, students will receive an introduction to spatial data and analyses with a focus on the link between demographic and environmental processes.

The course is open to all graduate students, post-docs, and junior faculty from any institution. The CUPC will provide a stipend to pay for travel to and from the short course.

If desired, students may enroll in the course for 1.5 credit, and we will cover the tuition costs. Credit-seeking students will be expected to complete a final exam.

Please apply via email to Lori Hunter by April 6th.

Your application should include: your vita, a one-page letter of interest that includes your current position (e.g, graduate student, post-doc, or faculty), and at least one reference (please include the email address of this reference; there is no need for a formal letter of recommendation). Decisions will be made by April 21.

For full details, click here.

Post Doctoral Fellowship in Research on Fathers and Fatherhood -- University of Maryland

The Department of Family Science in the School of Public Health and the Department of Human Development in the School of Education seek a postdoctoral fellow for a one-year (renewable for one year) appointment beginning in the fall of 2008. The fellowship is designed to provide an opportunity for an outstanding young scholar to engage in research and training in residence at the University of Maryland. The fellow will work with two senior faculty members and pursue collaborative research on causes and consequences of parenting practices, with an emphasis on men and fathering. The fellow is expected to begin an independent research track under guidance of his/her mentors during the conditional second year.

The fellow will receive a 12-month stipend of $40,000 plus health insurance benefits. Funds for travel to present at conferences will be available. Applicants must have completed a Ph.D. in demography, developmental psychology, family science, maternal and child health, sociology, or other related social science discipline focusing on parenting, family process, and/or fertility, with special emphasis on men and fatherhood, by the time of the appointment. Preference will be given to those with prior experience on quantitative research projects, publication and grant activity, and interests that fit with faculty. Experience in analysis of ethnic minority populations is desirable. Good working knowledge of SAS and Stata and experience with structural equation modeling/latent variable models are required.

Applicants should mail a cover letter that describes why they wish to pursue a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Maryland and how it will benefit their career development and research goals, curriculum vita, and research statement summarizing their current skills, their research experience and their future research agenda. Please include name, address, phone, and e-mail contact for three references. For additional information, please email hofferth@umd.edu or ncabrera@umd.edu or call 301-405-8501.

Sandra L. Hofferth, Professor
Department of Family Science
1210E Marie Mount Hall
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742

Screening of applications will begin in March and will continue until the position is filled.

Post Doctoral Fellowship -- Center for Research on Inequalities and the Life Course, Yale

The Center for Research on Inequalities and the Life Course (CIQLE) seeks applications for a postdoctoral fellowship for one or more years, to start in Fall 2008. Candidates should be interested in empirical research on the processes that generate inequalities of social class, race/ethnicity, generation, and gender across the life course and have experience on working with longitudinal data.

Applicants should expect to use 50% of their time for research collaboration with CIQLE faculty and/or making use of the CIQLE data archive. Current stipends are approximately $37,000 per year plus benefits. Applicants should have completed their Ph.D. by the beginning of the appointment but not earlier than 2005.

Please send a cover letter, curriculum vita, and a 2-5 page description of your postdoctoral research plans electronically to Chelsea Rhodes (preferred) or by mail to Karl Ulrich Mayer, Department of Sociology, Yale University, P.O. Box 208265, New Haven, CT 06520-8265, and arrange for two confidential letters of reference to be sent to the same address.

The deadline for applications is March 28, 2008.

For more information, see http://www.yale.edu/ciqle/ or contact Juho Härkönen.

OTHER NEWS OF INTEREST

Lecture on the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment -- James H. Jones

James H. Jones, PhD Lecture
"The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment: A Tragedy of Race and Medicine"

Monday, March 10
6:00 - 7:00 PM Reception to follow
Seattle Children's Hospital Research Institute
Soundgarden Conference Room (Rm. 1112)
1900 Ninth Ave

Please join the Seattle Children's Hospital Research Institute and the Austin Foundation for a stimulating lecture by James H. Jones, PhD on the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, March 10th from 6-7pm at the Research Institute downtown.

James H. Jones is an independent scholar living in San Francisco. A leading historian of American social and intellectual history, Jones is the author of Bad Blood: The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, which won academic prizes, was a New York Times Book Review "Best Book," and played an important role in the national dialogue on the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment>

The lecture is free and open to the public. Space is limited, so please RSVP if you would like to attend. Please RSVP to: rsdc@seattlechildrens.org

The Population Reference Bureau has added new content to its website

INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION

Managing Migration: The Global Challenge The number of international migrants is at an all-time high. There were 191 million migrants in 2005, which means that 3 percent of the world's people left their country of birth or citizenship for a year or more. The number of international migrants in industrialized countries more than doubled between 1985 and 2005, from almost 55 million to 120 million. This new Population Bulletin, written by Philip Martin and Gottfried Zürcher, reviews the migration streams of the last several decades, globally and by world region. Philip Martin is professor of agricultural economics at the University of California-Davis, chair of the University of California's Comparative Immigration and Integration Program, and editor of Migration News, a monthly summary of migration developments. Gottfried Zürcher is director general of the International Center for Migration Policy Development in Vienna, which is supported by 30 European governments to improve migration management.

http://www.prb.org/bulletins/63.1migration.pdf

FERTILITY

Do Muslims Have More Children Than Other Women in Western Europe?
Extremely low birth rates in most of Europe have fueled concerns about population decline, yet one segment of the continent's population—Muslims—continues to grow. The increasing number and visibility of Muslims in Western Europe, juxtaposed with the low fertility among non-Muslims, has led some Europeans to worry that the region will eventually have a Muslim majority, fundamentally changing Western European society. A new study by demographers Charles Westoff and Tomas Frejka challenges this perception, and suggests that the fertility gap between Muslims and non-Muslims is shrinking. This article was written by Mary Mederios Kent, senior demographic editor at PRB.

http://www.prb.org/Articles/2008/muslimsineurope.aspx

PRB IN THE FIELD

An East Africa PHE Network Takes Root
In November 2007, an East Africa Population, Health, and Environment (PHE) network took shape at a conference convened by the Population Reference Bureau (PRB) and LEM Ethiopia, the Environment and Development Society of Ethiopia. The conference, "Population, Health, and Environment: Integrated Development for East Africa," held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, drew field practitioners, policymakers, researchers, the media, community leaders, and advocates from 22 countries and five continents. They explored ways to address development priorities in East Africa through an integrated population-health-environment (PHE) approach. This article was written by Sandra Yin, editor at PRB.

http://www.prb.org/Articles/2008/ethiopiaconference.aspx

AGING

Race, Ethnicity, and Where You Live Matters: Recent Findings on Health and Mortality of U.S. Elderly
Over the past 50 years, remarkable improvements in health care and incomes have benefited older Americans from all racial and ethnic groups. But significant gaps persist and have even widened among some groups. Americans who are 65 years old today can expect to live another 18.4 years on average, approximately four more years than 65-year-olds could have expected 50 years ago. However, the health advantages gained over the last 50 years have not been the same for all groups. Among all major racial and ethnic groups, African American elderly fare the poorest with respect to mortality and health. This article was written by Toshiko Kaneda, a policy analyst at PRB; and Dia Adams, a former research assistant at PRB.

http://www.prb.org/Articles/2008/racialdisparities.aspx