At the CSDE seminar on May 14th, Dr. Carl Schmertmann will present “Estimating Total Fertility from the Shape of the Age Period: Bayesian Models and Applications”. CSDE Affiliate Jon Wakefield will moderate the discussion. Dr. Schmertmann will present a new Bayesian method for providing estimates of the total fertility rate (TFR) and quantifying the uncertainty of those estimates with incomplete or inadequate vital registration, and the application of this method to indigenous populations in Brazil for which TFR has not been previously estimated. Dr. Schmertmann is the William J. Serow Professor of Economics at Florida State University and the Director of FSU’s Center for Demography and Population Health.

Register for Dr. Schmertmann's Zoom seminar here. This quarter, CSDE is recording the seminar series and posting the links on its website. Visit our site here.

After the seminar, UW Statistics PhD Candidate Jessica Godwin will facilitate a graduate student discussion with Dr. Schmertmann. RSVP by emailing her at jlg0003@uw.edu(read more)

CSDE has awarded CSDE Affiliate and Assistant Professor of Real Estate Arthur Acolin a Tier 2 seed grant for $10,000 for his project, “Accessory Dwelling Units as Potential Source of Affordable Housing Across Generations”. The grant is part of CSDE’s quarterly call for seed grant applications. Seed grants are intended to help faculty initiate new research endeavors, alone or in collaboration, that have a high relevance to population science and a strong chance of building towards extramural funding. Dr. Acolin will conduct a joint project with Nick Welch, a Senior Planner at Seattle Office of Planning and Community Development, to examine the potential impacts of recent Seattle policy changes around accessory dwelling units (including "mother-in-law" apartments) on affordable housing accessibility for seniors and beyond. As part of the grant, Acolin plans to conduct a survey of Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) owners and residents as well as owners eligible to add ADUs, to understand the use of ADUs, the experience of residents in ADUs, and barriers to building more ADUs. (read more)

Congratulations to CSDE Trainee Crystal Yu (Sociology) who was awarded a best poster winner award for “The Demographic Effects of Eliminating Alzheimer’s Disease.” In Crystal’s research, she asks: if Alzheimer’s disease could be eliminated, how many premature deaths can be temporarily averted, and for approximately how long? A degenerative neurological disease that affects components of the brain responsible for cognitive ability and motor function, Alzheimer’s disease mostly affects those over age 65. In tandem with population aging, increasing numbers of older adults are expected to be diagnosed with the disease in the coming years. Indeed, Alzheimer’s is already the sixth leading cause of death in the U.S., and one of the leading causes of death for adults age 65 and over. 

Using cause-specific death statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics, along with age-specific population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau for the year 2018, Yu determines the gains in life expectancy and expected number of deaths averted when Alzheimer’s disease is eliminated as a cause of death using life tables and cause-removed life tables for the U.S. and for all fifty states. Nationally, she finds approximately 1180 deaths per 100,000 population are averted, along with gains of five to eight additional months in life expectancy across the life course. (read more)

On Thursday, May 13, CSDE Training Director and Research Scientist Christine Leibbrand will present on “Preventing and Identifying Fraud in Survey Data Collection”, as part of a UW Office of the CISO information security briefing. With a plethora of online platforms for collecting survey data, advertising surveys, and paying participants, it has become easier than ever to collect survey data. However, with those opportunities has come increasing risk that survey data will be hacked and the tools fraudsters have to hack surveys have become increasingly sophisticated. This workshop will serve as an introduction to ways in which your survey may be hacked, factors that increase your risk of experiencing fraud in your results, and strategies for preventing and identifying fraud in your data. The workshop is especially suited to researchers who are interested in fielding surveys through online platforms such as REDCap, Qualtrics, or Survey Monkey. To join the workshop, email malbin@uw.edu for a Zoom link. (read more)

On May 26 @8:30 am, Dr. Rosalind King, Population Dynamics Branch (PDB) Program Director, will join CSDE for an hour long briefing about funding opportunities through the branch and NICHD. After a brief presentation and overview of PDB’s priorities and mission, Dr. King will answer questions from participants. Dr. King is both a PDB Program Director and Associate Director for Prevention at NICHD.  Additionally, Dr. King chairs the institute’s Reproductive Health Interest Group and serves as a project scientist for the Science of Behavior Change Program within the NIH Common Fund. Register for this event here and join us by Zoom for the webinar. (read more)

On May 17 at 3pm (Pacific), Dr. Tim Thomas will be speaking about his research on housing and evictions based at the Urban Displacement Project. Thomas is the Research Director of the Urban Displacement Project. His research focuses on how neighborhood change, housing, and displacement affects household socioeconomic stratification by race and gender in the United States. Tim is also the Principal Investigator for the Evictions Study, a multi-metropolitan analysis on the neighborhood drivers of eviction using census data and text mining court records. The Zoom link for the talk can be found here. More information about the Computational Demography Working Group talks can be found here. (read more)

Join the CSDE Family Planning and Reproductive Health Working Group’s second working group meeting on May 26, 2021 from 10.30 – 12.00 noon (Pacific Time).

~ Claire Rothschild, Aasli Nur, Sara Curran & Liz Harrington

Description: Despite the global consensus that family planning programs should be voluntary and rights-based, there have been few efforts to systematically measure contraceptive coercion – and,by contrast, contraceptive autonomy – in the context of global family planning programs. The May meeting of CSDE’s Family Planning Working Group will focus on the multifaceted ways that global family planning programs can support or restrict an individual’s ability to exercise informed choice in their decision to use or not to use contraception. We will explore the variety of forms of contraceptive coercion in the context of family planning service delivery programs. We will also discuss a novel proposal for conceptualizing and measuring contraceptive autonomy. To join the meeting, click here.

Invited speaker: Dr. Leigh Senderowicz is a mixed-methods researcher and postdoctoral fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the Health Disparities Research program. In 2019, she earned her doctorate from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in the department of Global Health and Population. Her research focuses on reproductive autonomy, exploring the ways that new approaches to measurement and evaluation can promote person-centered care, health equity and reproductive freedom.

Workshop required readings:

Senderowicz, L. (2020), Contraceptive Autonomy: Conceptions and Measurement of a Novel Family Planning Indicator. Studies in Family Planning, 51: 161-176. https://doi.org/10.1111/sifp.12114

Senderowicz, L (2019) “I was obligated to accept”: A qualitative exploration of contraceptive coercion. Social Science & Medicine, 239. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2019.112531 (read more)

CSDE Affiliate and UW Social Work Assistant Professor Clara Berridge provided a keynote lecture on Adding Age to AI: The Importance of Representing Older Adults in Data and Design, as part of a joint AARP & Future of Privacy Forum (FPF) event on March 18th, 2021. If you missed the presentation, the recording is now available on YouTube. (read more)