Population Research Shows How Abortion Access and Reproductive Health Services are Best for Everyone and Their Families
CSDE’s Executive Committee members are very concerned about the consequences for population health resulting from the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, which effectively overturned Roe v Wade. For three generations, people in the U.S. have had the legal right to access abortions as part of their reproductive health choices. While the right to abortion has been in place for several generations, people of color, poor people, and people in rural areas have had little access to abortions. Furthermore, access has been eroding across the U.S. The consequences of these health disparities are well documented, showing just how important abortion and the full array of reproductive health services is crucial for the well-being of people and their families. Both the Population Association of America and the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population have each released statements documenting that evidence. In Washington abortion remains legal and Washington law requires that health provision and insurance cover abortion care. While abortion care facilities have grown since 2014, 10% of Washington women live in counties without any services (Guttmacher Institute). UW Medicine also posted a statement that recognizes its unique role in the region and the region’s needs for quality, comprehensive health care. For our part, CSDE will continue to support the very best demographic scholarship that increases knowledge about the causes and consequences of health disparities and translate those findings for policy and program impact. We must continue that effort!
Riley Awarded NSF Grant for Research on Village-Level Anti-Poverty Programming
CSDE Affiliate Emma Riley was recently awarded a research grant by the NSF to pursue a study of a village-level anti-poverty program. This research asks whether extreme poverty be effectively reduced if everyone in a community is included in an anti-poverty program, rather than only the poorest. The authors will also be able to shed light on the question of whether the causes of persistent poverty are specific to individual households or are common within a community and to what extent there are synergies in tackling poverty of everyone in a community at once. The study will use a Randomized Control Trial of a village-level anti-poverty program with nearly 4,000 households across 354 villages in rural Uganda. The authors will examine the effects of the program 2 years after its start, focusing on the effects on household poverty, income and wealth as well as women’s empowerment.
Almquist Quoted in Seattle Times Article About Counting the Homeless Population
CSDE Training Core PI Zack Almquist is quoted in a recent Seattle Times article related to his involvement in estimating the city’s homeless population. Almquist has been working with the King County Regional Homeless Authority on an alternative method to the Point-in-Time count used to receive funding from HUD. Almquist and the Authority’s estimates for 2022 are instead based on respondent-driven sampling, and still find a 14% increase from 2020 population estimates.
Bostom Publishes Several Collaborative Articles Forwarding Research in Climate Risk and Communication
CSDE Affiliate Ann Bostrom has recently published three articles with a number of co-authors. First, in the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, Bostrom and others present a scoping review of methods used to elicit individuals’ mental models of science or risk. The second study, published in Weather, Climate, and Society, aims to improve the usability and applicability of National Weather Service forecast information in the context of NWS core partners’ decisions during tropical cyclone threats. The research collected and analyzed data from in-depth interviews with broadcast meteorologists and emergency managers in 3 coastal U.S. states. The final article introduces the National Science Foundation (NSF) AI Institute for Research on Trustworthy AI in Weather, Climate, and Coastal Oceanography (AI2ES). To date AI2ES is the only NSF AI institute focusing on environmental science applications and focuses on developing trustworthy AI methods for weather, climate, and coastal hazards.
New Study from Williams and Co-Authors Assesses Stressors Amongst Transgender Veterans with Substance Use Disorders
CSDE Affiliate Emily Williams and a number of co-authors recently published new research on the relationship between substance use disorders and economic and social stressors amongst transgender veterans. The authors describe the prevalence of eight individual-level social and economic stressors (barriers to accessing care, economic hardship, housing instability, homelessness, social and family problems, legal problems, military sexual trauma, and other victimization) among transgender patients in the national VA records with and without alcohol use disorder and drug use disorder (alone and in combination). They consider these totals overall and compared to cisgender patients in a national sample of VA outpatients.
New Research from Kennedy, Spiro, West & Colleagues Present New Framework for Evaluating Interventions in Online Misinformation
CSDE Trainee Ian Kennedy, with CSDE Affiliates Emma Spiro, and Jevin West and others, have co-authored a publication in Nature Human Behavior called “Combining interventions to reduce the spread of viral misinformation.” Misinformation online poses a range of threats, from subverting democratic processes to undermining public health measures. The authors provide a framework to evaluate interventions aimed at reducing viral misinformation online both in isolation and when used in combination.
CSDE Seeks to Hire Computational Demographer & Research Scientist
The Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology (CSDE) seeks a Computational Demographer to join its Scientific Core. This position will have a joint role and complementary responsibilities within the UW eScience Institute. CSDE is a population research center at the University of Washington funded by a P2C grant from the Population Dynamics Branch at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), matching funds from the College of Arts and Sciences, the UW Provost’s Office, eScience Institute, other UW Schools and Colleges, as well as faculty affiliate grant proposals. CSDE is uniquely situated at the UW to foster cutting-edge population research, including our partnership with the Northwest Federal Statistical Research Data Center (NWFSRDC), the UW Data Collaborative, an active demographic graduate training program, and initiatives on campus linking and sharing administrative data and driving the formation of interdisciplinary teams together for scientific, evidence-based policymaking.
This position provides methodological support to faculty and graduate students studying demographic processes and their connections to population health dynamics, as well as leadership on innovative new projects consistent with the scientific emphases of CSDE and eScience. It requires broad social science research skills, advanced computational skills, and an orientation towards service and facilitation of research. The successful candidate will provide support for researchers in the areas of responsible conduct of research, transparent science, data construction, statistical and/or machine learning training, demographic forecasting and probabilistic modeling. We are especially interested in candidates with experience in the application of machine learning, natural language processing, and probabilistic linkages for relational, high-dimensional data for population science projects. Emphasis in these areas will benefit faculty using novel data sources (e.g. social media data, narratives in administrative records) to capture features of population processes generally absent or underrepresented in current data. Accordingly, this position requires exceptional interpersonal and communication skills; flexibility, adaptability and the desire to learn new skills as needed; and the ability to work as part of a team. We are looking for someone who is able to provide assistance to all levels of researchers and to do outreach that encourages best practice demographic research methods and successful grant proposals. These interpersonal skills are equally as important as the technical skills for this position.
Upcoming Webinar Series Hosted by NASA and NIHHIS Focuses on Heat Vulnerability Indices Using Remote Sensed Data
CSDE scientists working on population health and environment, especially climate-related events, may be interested in the upcoming webinar series hosted by NASA and the National Integrated Heat Health Information System (NIHHIS). The four-part webinar will take place on August 2, 4, 9, and 11 and will describe how to use remote sensed data for measuring urban heat islands and heat vulnerability indices.
CSDE Recommends – Recent Population and Development Review Table of Contents
CSDE is starting a new regular service for its community. We’ll be highlighting links to recent table of contents for population research journals. Not only might this be of interest for your research, but we encourage you to submit your work to these outlets, too!
This week, PDR’s June issue features papers highlighting the importance of gender within population research from both theoretical and empirical perspectives. The rich analyses and synthesis of evidence in this issue helps identify various roots of gender inequalities, demonstrates their social consequences, and highlights how detrimental gender inequalities can be to women and to society at large. Each article contributes not only to a better understanding of the causes and consequences of gender inequality, but also to a sense of urgency surrounding this most fundamental issue for demographic science.