Join CSDE for a seminar by Dr. Rick Smith on Friday, January 5th in PAR 360 and on Zoom (register here). There will be several opportunities to meet with Dr. Smith throughout the day. Interested individuals can sign up for 1-1 meetings here. CSDE Trainee Delaney Glass will also facilitate a graduate student discussion from 1:30-2:30 in Raitt 221. RSVP to Delaney (dglass1@uw.edu) to join the student discussion.

Dr. Smith is a geneticist and critical science scholar. He is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at George Mason University (GMU). He is also an affiliate of the Women and Gender Studies Program at GMU, The Indigenous Science and Technology Studies Program at The University of Alberta, and SING Canada. Prior to his current appointment as an Assistant Professor, he received his PhD from The University of Texas – Austin and worked as a post-doctoral scholar at the Neukom Institute for Computational Science and the Department of Anthropology at Dartmouth College. His work examines intersections of genomics, feminist, queer and Indigenous science to understand how power becomes molecular. His recent work involves understanding population histories and urban/ruralism, and colonial sex, kinship, and family in the American South.

CSDE will be hosting its regular seminar series on Fridays from 12:30-1:30 PM. Click here to see a pdf of our full winter schedule! 

CSDE Trainee Delaney Glass (Anthropology) published research with co-authors in SSM – Mental Health, titled “Advancing an individual-community health nexus: Survey, visual, and narrative meanings of mental and physical health for Arab emerging adults“. With the Iraqi Arab Health Board of Washington, Glass, al-Tameemi, and Farquhar examined the perspectives of Arab and Arab American emerging adults on self-rated physical and mental health using surveys and PhotoVoice. 

CSDE Affiliate Dr. Mark Ellis (Geography) recently co-authored an article in The Geographical Journal, titled “An ethnic group specific deprivation index for measuring neighbourhood inequalities in England and Wales“. Dr. Ellis conducted this study alongside a research team at Queens University Belfast with a grant from the Economic and Social Research Council. The study focuses on the geography of social deprivation in England and Wales, highlighting pockets of deprivation by ethnic group across the two countries, using the 2021 Census. Unlike the US,  the UK has no small area income data and so has no direct measure of poverty. The authors'  introduce the Ethnic Group Deprivation Index (EGDI) to identify areas of deprivation, using a collection of social indicators including health, education, and employment. Their research finds complex micro geographies of deprivation. While local towns may be perceived as prosperous, with little or no social deprivation overall, there may be small areas (zones of 1500 people) where one or more ethnic groups have very high levels of deprivation. These findings have been featured in two articles by The Guardian - the first article providing an overview of the index and the second article delving deeper into the experience of Oxford, England. 

CSDE Affiliate Dr. Leigh Anderson (Evans School of Public Policy and Governance) released research with co-authors in the Journal of Global Health, titled “Strengthening theories of change in women’s group interventions to improve learning“. Supporting women’s groups is increasingly seen as an important intervention strategy for advancing women’s empowerment, economic outcomes, and family health in low- and middle-income countries. Authors argue that learning from investments in women’s group platforms is often limited by the lack of a well-articulated, evaluable theory of change (ToC) developed by those designing the programmes. They review a portfolio of 46 women's groups investments made by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation between 2005 and 2017 to understand the prevalence and clarity of evaluable theories of change, and propose a framework for these theories which they hope will support more learning.

CSDE Affiliate Dr. Alexes Harris (Sociology) co-authored an article in the Conversation, discussing the impact of state laws which have removed court costs and fees for people who are unable to pay. Dr. Harris drew on her research and others, which has found that monetary sanctions often do more harm than good. Several states have responded by passing laws to remove or reduce juvenile fines and fees. Read the full article here.

CSDE Affiliate Dr. Amy Hagopian (Health Systems and Population Health, Global Health) was quoted by NPR in an article (here) on how 2023 is on track to have the highest number of attacks on health care facilities and health personnel. Dr. Hagopian commented on the threats to health workers in war zones, saying “part of [health workers’] mission is to provide a witness function”. According to Dr. Hagopian, this function is one reason why health professionals can pose a threat to a military or militia. They can "undermine the credibility of the fighting force [and hold] them accountable in ways that legal entities seem not to be able to do," she says.

CSDE Affiliate Dr. Leo Morales (Social Work, Health Systems and Population Health, Latino Center for Health) was quoted by the Everett Herald on Washington’s state’s shortage of Spanish-speaking nurses. There is a “great scarcity” of Spanish-speaking doctors and nurses across the country, said Dr. Morales, who also elaborated on the complexity that families face when it comes to medical interpreting. Morales discussed why family members and medical staff – who aren’t certified interpreters – who aren’t certified interpreters – should not interpret for safety reasons. Speaking directly with caregivers is more effective at ensuring patients return for follow-up and respond positively to advice. Read the full article here.

CSDE Trainee Lars Almquist published research with co-authors in Progress in Community Health Partnerships: Research, Education, and Action, titled “A Novel Approach to Geographically Mapping Effective Family-Based Services: Feasibility and Quality Comparison with 2-1-1“. The research was conducted in the UW CoLab for Community and Behavioral Health Policy, as part of work to assist other initiatives. Community social services are often fragmented and difficult to navigate. This presents a barrier to programs, such as health navigation, that focus on connecting individuals to available services. Existing service mapping efforts, such as those generated by 2-1-1, are helpful but limited in the specificity they provide, particularly with regard to whether services are based on evidence-informed principles. This may lead to a distrust of service quality or poor referral match. Authors developed a novel service mapping protocol to identify local, evidence-informed, family-based services, and compared results to 2-1-1’s resource list.

This quarter we will look forward to seeing you during our several workshops, working groups, or the lecture series.  Feel free to share these opportunities with colleagues and invite them to join. All events are open. We are here to accelerate and support your research. We have a grants team, a scientific consulting team (spatial analysis, statistics, and more), several lab facilities (biodemography, UWDC, NWFSRDC), a top-notch computing infrastructure, a network of outstanding CSDE affiliates for collaboration, and very accomplished graduate students - all can help you accomplish your research. If you don’t know where to start, just email: csde@uw.edu.

(read more)

In the upcoming quarter, CSDE will be hosting four workshops and one ‘lunch and learn’ event to facilitate researchers’ adoption of new methods and data to accelerate research programs. These workshops include an overview of portable biomarker data collection in the field, accessing federal statistical data, developing online surveys using REDCap, conducting statistical analysis with R, and an introduction to data options for research on older adults.

Each quarter, CSDE offers 3-5 workshops on data sources, statistical and biomarker methodology, introductions to analysis programs, and more, all given by CSDE staff and faculty affiliates. These workshops can include hands-on training in novel methods and programming, lectures on innovative data sources, and discussions of important issues in research and data collection. Over the course of the academic year, CSDE will offer a diverse and exciting set of workshops, some of which will be offered in person and others remotely via Zoom. Students, faculty, and staff are all welcome to register for our workshops and we welcome registrants from outside the University of Washington for our remote workshops as well.

You can find our workshop website and register for our Winter 2024 workshops in the links below. We will be filling in our schedule for Spring workshops soon, so stay tuned!

Please reach out to CSDE’s Training Director, Jessica Godwin (jlg0003@uw.edu), if you have additional workshops you would like to see offered in the future and we will do our best to accommodate those requests.

Winter Workshops

• Portable Methods for Biomarker Data Collection in the Field
  • Date: Thursday, Jan 18th @ 2:00PM-3:30PM
  • Location: Raitt 223/230
  • Instructor: Tiffany Pan
• The Northwest Federal Statistical Research Data Center: Enabling Access to Confidential, Unpublished Data from the Federal Statistical System
  • Date: Wednesday, Jan 24th @ 12:30PM-1:30PM
  • Location: Zoom
  • Instructors: Sofia Ayala & Carlos Becerra
• Survey Methods I: Online Survey Design & Administration with REDCap
  • Date & Time: Thursday, Feb. 1 @ 2:00PM–4:00PM
  • Location: HRC 101/Zoom
  • Instructors: Matt Dunbar & Phil Litwin
• Survey Methods II: Statistical Analysis of Surveys in R
  • Date & Time: Wednesday, Feb. 7 @ 1:30PM–3:00PM
  • Location: HRC 101/Zoom
  • Instructor: Jessica Godwin
• Lunch & Learn: Data to Support Research on Older Adults
  • Date & Time: Thursday, Feb 29th @ 12:00PM-1:00PM
  • Location: Raitt 223
  • Instructors: Sofia Ayala & Stipica Mudrazija

Please join us for the kickoff of the Biomarker Working Group! We are building a community with diverse expertise, connected by an interest in using biomarkers for population research. This will be a space for learning about and discussing current topics and methods in biomarker research and drawing on our collective knowledge to work through challenges in our own projects.

In this first of monthly meetings, gather with other population researchers using biomarkers and learn about the resources available through CSDE’s Biodemography Lab. Lunch will be provided for those who register here by December 30.

Event Details:

• Date: Thursday, January 4, 2024
• Time: 12:30 – 1:30PM
• Location: Raitt Hall 223

On January 3rd from 3:00 – 4:00 pm, the Computational Demography Working Group will hold its first meeting of the Winter quarter. We will briefly introduce the speakers of this quarter and sign up anyone interested in presenting their work. CDWG Will be Hybrid in Winter Quarter 2024. The event will take place in 223 Raitt Hall and on Zoom (register for Zoom here). 

Population Research Planning Grants (PRPGs) are designed to provide in-kind support and/or funds of up to $25k* to support a wide array of activity types throughout the development of a research project. As part of our mission to complement rather than duplicate other campus opportunities such as the Population Health Initiative seed grants, we will consider funding things activities such as:

• Use of CSDE services beyond the standard allotments for affiliates. This could include statistical or computational consultations, administrative and logistical support, computer accounts, software purchases that contribute to the general good, virtual server capacity that contributes to the general good, communication or webinar support, etc.
• Convening a group of scholars for a grant writing retreat or to brainstorm a possible new research collaboration
• Hiring an RA to analyze data for discussion in the Preliminary Data section of a grant application
• Small pilot research, when relationship to future funding requests are clearly laid out. Note that research that is well suited to an existing pilot research mechanism on campus should be submitted to that mechanism, with an optional request of matching support from CSDE (see below).
• Publication-related fees (when no other funding is available). NEW THIS YEAR: requests for publication fees will only be considered for publications that involve at least one CSDE affiliate and at least one CSDE trainee, and which are targeted to a demography-oriented journal or comparable outlet.
• Travel (when specifically enhancing research project development)
• Many others; just ask!

CSDE Matching Support includes in-kind or monetary support to accompany a submission to other on-campus funding mechanism, such as PHI, EarthLab, or Urban@UW. All projects must have a CSDE affiliate who is UW faculty and is listed as a PI or co-PI, with any number of other collaborators. Note that we require (PRPGs) or strongly suggest (matching funds) contacting either Development Core Director (Steven Goodreau) or CSDE Director (Sara Curran) to discuss possibilities for your specific proposal before submission.

The Population Dynamics Branch (PDB) within the National Institute of Child Health & Human Development has recently posted a number of active funding announcements.  Please check them out and see if they are relevant for your research program.  If they are, CSDE is very happy to support you in preparing and considering an application.  Our team can help you with providing feedback on your application, providing you with mock review panel, connecting you with a program officer, etc. 

See the full web-story for a full list of funding opportunities!