The Council of Professional Associations on Federal Statistics (COPAFS) has drafted a letter regarding the recent incidents involving data being selectively removed from agency websites.  This letter to Senate and House leadership expresses opposition to this unprecedented removal of public data and requesting Congress take action to restore any data which has been removed and ensure a similar data purge does not occur again.  Signatures are being accepted from both organizations and individuals until noon (ET), Friday, February 7.

According to a recent study from CSDE Affiliate Griselda Martinez (Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences) and co-authors, Mexican-origin adolescents who reported increases in family and peer stressors were more likely to binge drink from middle adolescence to young adulthood. The study, entitled “Prospective associations between stressors and alcohol use from early adolescence to young adulthood in Mexican-origin youth in the United States,” was recently published in Developmental Psychology and was featured in a Penn State research brief. Read the research brief here and the full article here.

When: Friday, Feb 7, 2025 (12:30-1:30PM)

Where: VIRTUAL ONLY –  Zoom (register here)

We are looking forward to virtually hosting Sameer Shah (Environmental and Forest Sciences, UW), Ethan Sharygin (Population Research Center, Portland State University), and Mary Angelica Painter (Natural Hazards Center, University of Colorado Boulder) on Friday, Feb 7th on Zoom. This seminar is co-sponsored by the Population Health Initiative. 

This year started with the widespread devastation wrought from the Palisades, Eaton, Kenneth, and other wildfires that broke out in Los Angeles County, California. As of January 10th, the fires destroyed over 10,000 buildings, displacing residents across the region. These wildfires highlight the pressing need to understand relocation patterns post-event to better inform state and local hazard mitigation planning, as well as recovery and reconstruction policy. We aim to understand migration dynamics associated with previous California wildfires using the California Consumer Credit Panel (CCCP) data to assess the direction and magnitude of movements and the role of housing and neighborhood characteristics in mediating migration outcomes, including the share and timing of displaced people who return to their neighborhoods. We assess the similarity of direction and magnitude of movements in the CCCP to other predictive models based on commute flows and postal service change-of-address data. We focus on concepts of social vulnerability and equity to conceptualize differences in outcomes for various populations.

Dr. Sameer Shah is a John C. Garcia Professor and Assistant Professor of Climate Adaptation in the School of Environmental & Forest Sciences at the University of Washington. He is also an Affiliate with the UW Center for Studies in Demography in Ecology, Center for Environmental Politics, and Clean Energy Institute. Dr. Shah holds expertise in the human dimensions of climate change vulnerability and adaptation. He aims to understand how systemic marginalization, and climate-related change and disasters interact to create and amplify uneven water, food, and energy insecurities for communities on the frontlines of climate change. In particular, his research develops theoretical, conceptual, and empirical analyses of the equity, justice, and sustainability outcomes of climate adaptation and disaster response at multiple scales. At SEFS, Dr. Shah directs the WATERS Research Collaborative (Water, Adaptation & Transformation: Equity, Resilience and Sustainability).

Dr. Ethan Sharygin is the Director of the Population Research Center at Portland State University, which annually produces population estimates and forecasts, analyzes census data to support policy research and implementation, and represents Oregon in partnerships with the U.S. Census Bureau. His recent work focuses on census data quality and related methodology, including methods for geographic allocation of census microdata and methods of evaluating census coverage and quality. His research also addresses demography-related topics in health research including assignment of race and ethnicity in survey data and implications for health measurement and consequences of disaster including famine and wildfire. Sharygin has a B.A. degree from the University of Washington, an M.P.P. from UC Berkeley, and a Ph.D. in demography from the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Mary Angelica Painter is a political scientist with expertise in political and governance dimensions of vulnerability to natural hazards. She is a research associate for the Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado Boulder and a CONVERGE Data Ambassador. Dr. Painter’s research interests include developing and adopting new ways to understand and engage with socially vulnerable communities in the context of natural hazards, while also incorporating the effects of the role of government, policy, and politics in disaster mitigation, preparedness, response, relief, and recovery. Her research is driven by a philosophy of collaboration, where community, decisionmakers, researchers, and everyday people are involved in identifying problems and finding solutions together for those who are in most need.

Racial segregation is a fundamental cause of disease, but research on its relationship with air pollution beyond sociodemographic mechanisms remains underdeveloped. To address this gap, CSDE Trainee Hiwot Zewdie and Affiliate Anjum Hajat (Epidemiology) recently collaborated with several co-authors to publish a paper in Environmental Epidemiology entitled “Racial residential segregation is associated with ambient air pollution exposure after adjustment for multilevel sociodemographic factors: Evidence from eight US-based cohorts.” The findings suggest that segregation is independently associated with air pollution beyond SES factors, and may be a confounding variable that should be considered in future epidemiological studies on air pollution. Read the full article here.

Congratulations to CSDE Affiliate Donald Chi, who recently received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers from outgoing US President Joe Biden. Dr. Chi has received wide recognition for his research, including the 2017 Young Investigator Award from the International Association for Dental Research. Dr. Chi was also previously a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University which helped inform his research program on the social and behavioral determinants of health inequities in children. 

Recently, Dr. Chi has led research examining why some parents reject the administration of fluoride to their children and has worked with Yup’ik communities in Alaska to help improve the oral health of Alaska Native children.

Check out the official list of the nearly 400 PECASE winners from 14 participating agencies and learn more about the award here.

Population projections have traditionally been done deterministically using the cohort component method, yielding a single value for each projected future population quantity of interest. At PAA 2025, CSDE Affiliate Adrian Raftery and Research Scientist Hana Ševčíková will teach a workshop on the theory and practice behind Bayesian subnational population projections, in which the total fertility rate, female and male life expectancy at birth, and net migration rates are projected using Bayesian hierarchical models estimated via Markov Chain Monte Carlo.

The instructors are members of the research group that developed the methods to be taught in the course. Learn more about this opportunity here.