Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology

University Of Washington, Seattle WA

Investigators

Linked publications & trials

Abstract

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology (CSDE) requests a renewal of its five year center grant R24 infrastructure support. CSDE has 86 faculty affiliates, 68 from UW departments in the College of Arts and Sciences, School of Public Health, School of Social Work, School of Nursing, School of Public Affairs, and College of the Environment; the remaining 18 are at regional institutions in the northwest: Washington State University, Western Washington University, Seattle University, Battelle Memorial Institute, and the University of Victoria, Canada. With these affiliates, CSDE's goal is to advance knowledge on the fundamental issues of demography - fertility and family change, migration, health and mortality - with new data, new conceptual approaches, and new techniques, as well as continuing to ask new questions about demographic behaviors and population outcomes. To accomplish this goal, CSDE: (1) provides a broad range of high quality research services supporting cutting-edge population science, (2) fosters interdisciplinary collaborations that yield innovations in demographic research, (3) develops new demographic research methods in computational and laboratory settings, (4) provides training for researchers at all levels of experience in established and new methods in population science, (5) provides resources and an environment to nurture the development of junior population scientists, (6) disseminates CSDE research to academic and wider communities. Five signature themes describe the research of CSDE's affiliates: (1) Biosocial Contexts of Population Health; (2) Families and Children; (3) Migrants, Minorities and Unequal Opportunities; (4) Population and Environment; (5)Demographic Methods. CSDE will use the R24 application to request continuing support for these research themes through four research infrastructure cores and a developmental infrastructure core: 1) Administration and Information Management Core - provides high quality service in all aspects of support for research administration and information management; 2) Biodemography Core - facilitates the inclusion of biological data in population research, and specializes in developing and optimizing methods suitable for large-scale biomarker collection and measurement in non-clinical settings ; 3) Computing Core - provides cutting edge technical, application, and programming support as well as computing infrastructure to CSDE affiliates, staff, and research assistants;4) Methods and Data Core - supports the research and training activities of CSDE by providing expertise in the choice and implementation of statistical and GIS methodology;5) Developmental Infrastructure Core - promotes new research initiatives, especially for junior researchers, through seed and working group grant wards to CSDE faculty affiliates.