John Casterline, Department of Sociology, Ohio State University

Variants of an “African exceptionalism” argument are now common in the discourse on African fertility decline.  In a recent contribution, Bongaarts (2017) presents evidence of an “Africa effect” — fertility rates on average one birth higher than in other regions conditional on conventional demographic and socioeconomic factors.  In this presentation, John investigates the empirical basis for this claim via country-level regression analysis of annual data for the period 1950 – 2015. Two propositions are examined:  (i) Fertility declines in Africa started at lower levels of development than declines in other regions.  (ii) Fertility in Africa exceeds what is expected given values of conventional development indicators.  Both propositions are rejected.  As fertility decline unfolds in Africa, its alignment with socioeconomic development roughly conforms to the historical experience in other regions, especially Asia.

CSDE’s fellowship program supports and prepares promising early researchers for careers that will have a significant impact on the field of demography. Each year, CSDE awards several distinguished fellowships for predoctoral funding and additional mentoring. CSDE is pleased to offer two 12-month fellowships supported by the Shanahan Foundation that begin mid-September 2018.

Students have until Monday, December 4 (by 5 PM) to complete the online component of the application, and submit a copy of the online component along with the rest of their application materials to their graduate program administrator. The Department should upload the files no later than Friday, December 22 (by 5 PM).

The “Call for Applications” as well as the CSDE fellowship application website provides detailed information about the application process.

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Congratulations to affiliate India Ornelas, who was awarded $3 million from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for her research on reducing health disparities among Latina immigrants. Ornelas, Associate Professor of Health Services, received the R01 award for her project “Amigas Latinas Motivando el Alma (ALMA): A Randomized Control Trial of an Intervention to Reduce Mental Health Disparities in Mexican Immigrant Women.”

CSDE is organizing a Biomarker Working Group for those interested in using biological data in social and behavioral science research. The aim is to provide a forum for informal discussions of practical and theoretical issues associated with collecting and using biomarker data, and to offer opportunities to discuss early-stage research ideas or present preliminary results.

Our next meeting (Tuesday, November 14, 2 to 3:30 pm, 114 Raitt Hall) will be an informal discussion of logistics and challenges with collecting, processing, storing and transporting biological samples in field research settings.

This working group is open to all students, faculty, and staff and we plan to meet about once a month. Those interested in joining the working group can contact Ellie Brindle (ebrindle@uw.edu) to be added to the email distribution list.

In a recent article, affiliate Betty Bekemeier, Professor in the Department of Nursing, seeks to help bridge the gap in understanding between provision of public health services and their outcomes at the state and local level. In the article, published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, Bekemeier and her co-author discuss the model they developed—with the aid of practice partners—to guide the creation of standardized systems for collecting data on preventative health services and assessing their reach and performance. The first of its kind, the model will help to shape efforts to measure and track local health department services, along with their effects on state and community health.

At the 2017 International Population Conference (IPC)--held in Cape Town, South Africa, from October 29 to November 4--the IUSSP Scientific Panel on Big Data and Population Processes hosted three preconference workshops on demography and the Data Revolution. Of these, one was led by affiliate Adrian Raftery, and another by affiliate Emilio Zagheni and CSDE Fellow Connor Gilroy.

Raftery, Professor of Statistics and Sociology, led a two-day workshop on Bayesian Population Projections: Theory and Practice along with Hana Ševčíková, Senior Research Scientist at the Center for Statistics and Social Sciences. Zagheni, Associate Professor of Sociology and CSDE Training Director, and Gilroy led a daylong workshop on Social Media, Big Data and Digital Demography.