Features

Meet the recently elected Carolina Population Center Faculty Fellows: Introducing S. Philip Morgan, Lauren Persha, Liana Richardson, Kavita Singh, and Colin Thor West
UNC Epidemiology Professor Jim Thomas to be Director of UNC’s largest project: James C. “Jim” Thomas, Ph.D., has been appointed the new Director of MEASURE Evaluation. In 2008, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) awarded up to $181 million for the 6-year Project, which remains the largest award ever received by UNC-Chapel Hill.
CPC Fellow Amy Herring receives APHA’s Mortimer Spiegelman Award: Award honors her achievements as a public health biostatistician
J. Richard Udry, esteemed population studies scholar and Carolina Population Center’s Director from 1977 – 1992, died at his home on Sunday, July 29, 2012.: Dick Udry joined the UNC faculty as Associate Professor of Maternal and Child Health and Sociology in 1965. He was CPC’s Director from 1977 until 1992.
Morgan named new director of UNC’s Carolina Population Center: S. Philip Morgan, an internationally known sociologist and population scientist, has been named the new director of the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He will also become a UNC professor in the sociology department.
7 Billion: what does it mean for global population trends?: This past summer the Population Division of the United Nations projected that the world would soon welcome its 7 billionth resident. The date arbitrarily selected to mark the event was October 31, 2011. What meaning does such an event have for a university center of research scholars, like CPC, devoted to understanding and interpreting global population trends?
New Faculty Fellow profile: Clark Gray: The Carolina Population Center and UNC-Chapel Hill were entwined with Clark Gray’s history long before he was named a CPC Faculty Fellow earlier this year. Gray received both his B.S. in Biology and Ph.D. in Geography from UNC-CH and was a CPC Predoctoral Trainee and a Postdoctoral Scholar. During this time, he did research with CPC Faculty Fellow Richard Bilsborrow and former Faculty Fellow Flora Lu on the drivers of land use by indigenous peoples in the Ecuadorian Amazon.
Family and community-based support systems critical to better mental health for Latino immigrants: Of the United States’ population growth over the last decade, 56 percent can be attributed to its Latino population. Though many of these individuals are born in the United States, migration still accounts for a large portion of the growing Latino population. The research of CPC Faculty Fellow Krista Perreira focuses on the effects migration can have on the mental health and well-being of immigrants and their families.
Interdisciplinary study in South Africa examines whether paying girls to attend school reduces their risk of acquiring HIV: Of all the countries in the world, South Africa has the most people living with HIV. Even more than China or India with much larger population sizes. Among the nearly 50 million people living in South Africa, the current HIV prevalence is about 12%. The adolescent and young adult years are a particularly risky time for acquiring HIV, especially for young South African women.
Institutional and policy changes affect economic reality of Russian people: In the last 20 years, the people of Russia have experienced major societal changes caused by extensive political transformation and ensuing economic reforms. These changes have impacted every sector of society including labor services and employment, health services and their utilization, and the public education system. CPC Faculty Fellow Klara Sabirianova Peter is an economist who studies the myriad ways individuals respond to major institutional and policy changes, and how the changes impact the society as a whole.
Malawi study may lead to new approach to improve health and survival of HIV-positive mothers and their infants: A study by CPC Fellows of approximately 2,400 HIV-positive mothers and their children in Malawi to examine how inexpensive nutritional supplements might result in improved health of mothers and their infants. The implications of this work may guide health programs for populations in which HIV is prevalent, in particular in low-resource settings.
Economic and cultural factors lead to China's low fertility rate, more so than government's one-child policy: Carolina Population Center Fellow Yong Cai's research suggests that economic and cultural factors are critical to understand China's low fertility, and are more important than the government's one-child policy. He advocates for the return of reproductive freedom to Chinese people.
CPC studies link neighborhood characteristics to obesity, other health outcomes: Obesity is one of the most pressing global population health issues, and importantly one that affects race/ethnic minorities and those of low socioeconomic status disproportionately. Each day, we learn more and more about the complex relationships between biologic, socioeconomic, demographic, environmental and cultural factors operating over the course of a person’s life that ultimately influence obesity across populations.
Hope for Haiti comes from within: religion, resilience, and recovery: In the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti, people gather in song and prayer. Amidst destroyed homes and churches, many say "Bondye bon" which means "God is good." Survivors grieve for their loved ones and for what they have lost. And they pray that God will help transform their suffering into hope, a hope for renewal.
Changes in ecosystem of humans and land in Eastern and Southern Africa are focus of CPC study: In the iconic landscape of East Africa where lions roam across a vast green plain, the native people have named it Siringet, meaning "endless plains where the land meets the sky." But for Tanzania's Maasai tribe, the Siringet, much of what is now know as the Serengeti National Park, no longer stretches towards the horizon. Gone are the days they wandered across infinite grasslands as pastoralists and nomads for centuries.