Research Projects
The following projects and programs offer web sites with detailed information about their research: study design, data collection, findings, publications, and more. To learn more about a project or about data access, please visit the project’s web site.
- Add Health (The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health)
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Add Health is a nationally representative study of the health and behavior of adolescents in grades 7-12 in the United States in 1994-95 who have been followed through adolescence and the transition to adulthood with special emphasis on the effects of social context.
Related CPC Signature Themes:
Current CPC Grants and Contracts: - Carolina Population Center
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The Carolina Population Center (CPC) at UNC-Chapel Hill seeks renewal of a five-year grant under the NICHD R24 Population Research Infrastructure Program. Established in 1966, CPC draws its current body of 58 elected faculty fellows from 15 departments and five schools. Eight signature themes collectively describe the population research interests of the faculty: Sexual Behavior, Contraceptive Use, and Reproductive Health; Fertility, Families, and Children; Life Course Perspectives; Biological and Social Interactions; Population Movement, Diversity, and Inequality; Place, Space, and Health; Population and Environment; and Population and Health Policies and Programs. Participation in Center activities is broad: currently, 18 different faculty fellows in addition to the Director are taking a role in CPC administrative activities; over the past five years, 40 fellows have served as preceptors (advisors) to CPC pre- and postdoctoral trainees; 45 fellows have been PI or co- investigator on a population-relevant grant or contract. An outstanding research infrastructure is essential to the creativity and productivity of the faculty fellows, their funding record, and research impact. As of fall 2009, CPC's portfolio consisted of 65 funded research projects and 5 supplements. Since 2004, CPC fellows, trainees, and staff published almost 1200 population-relevant articles, chapters, edited volumes, and monographs. Their research addresses the population field and also reaches out to the broader public health community, policy-makers, and the public. CPC faculty fellows also make fundamental contributions to the research infrastructure of the field through major longitudinal data collections based at the Center, such as the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. These innovative studies expand their impact by sharing data through mechanisms that CPC pioneered. Research based at CPC is highly collaborative and interdisciplinary. With the existing web of collaboration as a platform, the Center provides services and support that foster the cross-fertilization of methods, tools, and perspectives in the development of innovative population research. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The Carolina Population Center supports significant and innovative interdisciplinary social science-oriented research, with the goal of improving the health and well being of the population. Its research themes are: Sexual Behavior, Contraceptive Use, and Reproductive Health; Fertility, Families, and Children; Life Course Perspectives; Biological and Social Interactions; Population Movement, Diversity, and Inequality; Place, Space, and Health: Population and Environment: and Population and Health Policies and Programs.
Current CPC Grants and Contracts: - Cebu Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Survey
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This program follows a cohort of Filipino women who gave birth between May 1, 1983, and April 30, 1984. Originally conceptualized as a study of infant feeding patterns and how feeding decisions interact with social, economic, and environmental factors to affect health, nutritional, demographic, and economic outcomes, this cohort was reinterviewed in 1991-2, 1994, and 1999.
Related CPC Signature Themes:
Current CPC Grants and Contracts:- Gene-Environment Interactions and Weight Gain [ Penny Gordon-Larsen ]
- Modeling the Developmental Origins of Adult Disease Risk Factors [ Linda S. Adair ]
- Multidimensional pathways to healthy aging among Filipino women [ Linda S. Adair ]
- Relating multiple dimensions of stress to CVD risk in Filipino adults [ Linda S. Adair ]
- Center for Galapagos Studies
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The Center for Galapagos Studies (CGS) is the coordinating unit for UNC's Galapagos Initiative, which marshals Carolina's research strengths to address the complex human and environmental pressures in the Galapagos archipelago, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and birthplace of evolutionary science.
- Center on Antisocial Drug Dependence: The Genetics of HIV Risk Behaviors
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Carolyn Tucker Halpern, John Hewitt (Overall PI, University of Colorado at Boulder)
The overall goal of this project is to contribute to our understanding of the etiology of individual differences in behavioral disinhibition, the relationship of this to drug abuse and the development of dependence, and the role that these play in the propensity for risky behaviors that may result in STDs, including HIV/AIDS.
Related CPC Signature Themes:
Current CPC Grants and Contracts:- Center on Antisocial Drug Dependence: The Genetics of HIV Risk Behaviors [ Carolyn Tucker Halpern, John Hewitt (Overall PI, University of Colorado at Boulder) ]
- China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS)
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This project was designed to examine the effects of the health, nutrition, and family planning policies and programs implemented by national and local governments and to see how the social and economic transformation of Chinese society is affecting the health and nutritional status of its population.
Related CPC Signature Theme:
Current CPC Grants and Contracts: - Collaborative Research: Multi-level Response Diversity: Land Use, Livelihood Diversification, and Resilience in Northern Tanzania
- Current CPC Grants and Contracts:
- Demographic Data Sharing and Archiving
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The specific aims of this project are to: (1) provide investigators with tools that will enable them to disseminate public access versions of their data; (2) provide investigators with tools and strategies for the dissemination of restricted-access data (3) assist investigators in ensuring that potential users can locate their data, get support in all the stages of acquisition and use, and receive appropriate training in data use; (4) provide long-term secure archiving of public-use and restricted use data, in order to ensure that the data are permanently preserved for future use; and (5) improve the science of data sharing and archiving through a program of research and development in key areas.
Current CPC Grants and Contracts: - Dynamically Integrating Macro and Micro Processes
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This project will develop tools to study social processes involving individuals, households, social networks, and communities in relation to health. The application of these tools will help us better understand and interpret the research literature connecting community factors with health outcomes and provide a complement to the standard statistical approaches.
Related CPC Signature Themes:
Current CPC Grants and Contracts: - Ecuador Projects
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Richard E. Bilsborrow, Stephen J. Walsh
This program investigates the social, economic, and demographic effects on land use change among colonist and indigenous communities in the northern Ecuadorian Amazon.
- Effects of Cash Transfer and Community Mobilization in Young South African Women
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This project will determine the effect of an innovative, multi-level HIV prevention intervention that will jointly address both structural and social factors that contribute to young women's increased vulnerability to HIV.
Related CPC Signature Themes:
Current CPC Grants and Contracts: - Emerging Disparities in Chronic Disease Risk
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Jon M. Hussey, Narayan Sastry (University of Michigan)
The goal of this project is to examine early life influences on racial and ethnic disparities in chronic disease risk from an interdisciplinary perspective, utilizing data from the Add Health study.
Related CPC Signature Themes:
Current CPC Grants and Contracts:- Emerging Disparities in Chronic Disease Risk [ Jon M. Hussey, Narayan Sastry (University of Michigan) ]
- Environmental Changes and Health Outcomes across 25 Years: Four US Cities
- Current CPC Grants and Contracts:
- Evaluating U.S. children's food purchases and caloric intake to gauge the food industry's impact on prevention of childhood obesity
- Current CPC Grants and Contracts:
- Genetic/Epigenetic Markers, Social Contexts, Lifecourse and Risky Health Behavior
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The overall challenge for our project is to integrate genetic polymorphisms, epigenetic markers, social contextual measures, and developmental periods into analysis of risky health behaviors.
Related CPC Signature Theme:
Current CPC Grants and Contracts: - Heterogeneity in Cardiometabolic Risk with Obesity: Who Is at Risk?
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This study takes advantage of 20-year longitudinal data from approximately 9,000 individuals enrolled in the NIH funded China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS), to examine how the timing and duration of obesity and central adiposity shape variability in current cardiometabolic risk underlying the "metabolically healthy - overweight" and the "metabolically at risk - normal weight" phenotypes in children, adolescents, young- and middle-aged adults.
Current CPC Grants and Contracts: - HSD: Collaborative Research: Dynamics of Parks as Agents of Change in Eastern & Southern Africa
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Paul W. Leslie, J. Terrence McCabe, University of Colorado at Boulder Abraham C. Goldman, University of Florida
This project aims to examine the inter-relationship of livelihood diversification and social and environmental change outside protected areas in eastern and southern Africa.
Related CPC Signature Theme:
Current CPC Grants and Contracts:- HSD: Collaborative Research: Dynamics of Parks as Agents of Change in Eastern & Southern Africa [ Paul W. Leslie, J. Terrence McCabe, University of Colorado at Boulder Abraham C. Goldman, University of Florida ]
- Improving nutritional status and health of infants and lactating women through the use of Lipid Based Nutrition Supplements (LNS): Evidence from a longitudinal, randomized trial in Lilongwe, Malawi
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Our main goal is to provide the scientific evidence to support the broad use of low-cost LNS to enhance the nutritional status of women and children.
Related CPC Signature Themes:
Current CPC Grants and Contracts: - Infant Care Project
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This research examines behavioral and environmental factors that significantly influence infant health outcomes in the first two years of life. The study is currently being conducted among African-American mother-infant pairs in North Carolina.
- Integration of Spatial and Social Network Analysis in Vaccine Trials
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This project will develop and test spatial analytical and social network analysis methods for vaccine trials and disease transmission modeling.
Related CPC Signature Theme:
Current CPC Grants and Contracts: - LAMHA - Latino Adolescent Migration, Health and Adaptation Project
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This project is a mixed-method, descriptive study of the mental health status and needs of immigrant youth and their families.
- Life Course Studies
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These studies relate human development to the life course in changing environments, with emphasis on educational processes or linkages, e.g., socialization and mastery learning.
Related CPC Signature Theme:
- Livelihood Empowerment against Poverty (LEAP)
- Current CPC Grants and Contracts:
- MEASURE Evaluation
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Examines the impact of a wide range of activities to improve human health and well-being, with a focus on family planning, maternal and child health and nutrition, and the prevention of HIV/STDs.
Related CPC Signature Themes:
Current CPC Grants and Contracts: - Measurement, Learning & Evaluation (MLE) Project for the Urban Reproductive Health Initiative
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The Urban Reproductive Health Initiative, a multi-country program targeting the urban poor, improves contraceptive choice and increases access to high quality, voluntary family planning. Because 1 in 3 urban residents live in slums, many beyond the reach of health services, the URHI aims to increase the equitable distribution of family planning services. The Initiative links country-level consortia with evaluation experts on the Measurement, Learning & Evaluation (MLE) Project who will identify the most effective country-level approaches, facilitate knowledge sharing, and build a robust evidence base to shape future urban family planning, reproductive health, and integrated maternal and newborn health programs.
Related CPC Signature Themes:
Current CPC Grants and Contracts: - Modeling Population-Environment Interactions in a World Heritage Site
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To design a data collection and analysis approach that could be analyzed both by ABM and econometric experts to see the extent to which the ABM and statistical approaches give similar results, and if not, why not.
Current CPC Grants and Contracts: - Nang Rong Projects
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Barbara Entwisle, Ronald R. Rindfuss Stephen J. Walsh
These studies were conducted for monitoring and understanding demographic and social changes occurring in Nang Rong, Thailand.
- National Children's Study - North Carolina Study Center
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The National Children's Study Vanguard Center in Duplin County, NC is part of a nationally representative study examining social, behavioral, biological, community and environmental factors that may affect children's health and development from the prenatal period through young adulthood.
Related CPC Signature Themes:
Current CPC Grants and Contracts:- National Children's Study, Cumberland County [ Barbara Entwisle ]
- The National Children's Study [ Barbara Entwisle, Anna Maria Siega-Riz, Nancy Dole (Carolina Population Center) ]
- The National Children's Study - Duplin County Vanguard Center [ Barbara Entwisle, Nancy Dole, Co-PI (Carolina Population Center) ]
- National Study of Youth and Religion
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This study examines continuity and change over time in religious affiliations, beliefs and practices of American youth. It also explores links between these religious dynamics and other aspects of youth's lives, including subjective well-being, family processes, educational achievement, and career development.
- Nutrition Transition Program
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This program involves a set of research projects studying the rapid increases in inactivity and obesity, and the associated rise in noncommunicable diseases, that have occurred along with other rapid social and economic changes in the developing world.
- Nutrition-related NCD Prevention Training in China
- Current CPC Grants and Contracts:
- Obesity and Metabolic Risk Disparities: Underlying Food Environment Factors
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This project uses longitudinal data to understand the effects of changes in food prices, and availability and access to away-from-home food eateries and food shopping options, on diet, and in turn, weight gain and metabolic risk factors.
Current CPC Grants and Contracts: - ONEdata - Obesity & Neighborhood Environment Database
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The Obesity and Neighborhood Environment database is a unique collection of variables derived using spatial analysis techniques within a large scale Geographic Information System (GIS) that links community-level data to individual Add Health respondent residential locations in both space and time. Community-level data include density and proximity to recreational facilities, land use patterning, population, economic, climate, and crime statistics, which are linked spatially and temporally to individual-level Add Health behavior and health outcome data.
Related CPC Signature Themes:
- PIRE Collaborative Research and Training in Social Context, Population Processes, and Environmental Change
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This new interdisciplinary multi-site program is designed to train the next generation of scientists to conduct the international collaborative research needed to address important issues of global environmental change.
Related CPC Signature Theme:
Current CPC Grants and Contracts: - Population Research Training
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The objective of this NICHD-NRSA training grant is to develop in CPC trainees the skills needed for carrying out successful population-relevant research, primarily through hands-on collaboration with experienced faculty researchers. The keystone of the training program is an individualized faculty mentor preceptor-trainee relationship. Trainees collaborate with their faculty mentors in population-relevant research.
Current CPC Grants and Contracts: - Pregnancy, Infection, and Nutrition Study (PIN)
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This study examines a range of potential risk factors for preterm birth, focusing primarily on psychosocial stress, physical activity, placental characteristics, infection, nutrition, health behaviors, socioeconomic characteristics, and other health, social, and contextual factors. Factors affecting weight retention in the postpartum period are also examined.
- Religion's Role in the Shaping of Self-Image, Aspirations, and Achievement in Youth
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This study investigates the influence of religion on how youth perceive themselves and prepare for their futures. It focuses on self-image, educational and career aspirations, and educational achievement.
Related CPC Signature Themes:
Current CPC Grants and Contracts: - Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey of HSE (RLMS-HSE)
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The RLMS is a household-based longitudinal survey designed to measure the effects of Russian reforms on the economic well-being of households and individuals.
Related CPC Signature Themes:
- Socioeconomic Disparities in Young Adult Health
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This project will use four waves of data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) to examine how socioeconomic status (SES) and other early life factors influence young adult disparities in chronic disease risk.
Related CPC Signature Themes:
Current CPC Grants and Contracts: - Southern Immigrant Academic Adaptation Study (SIAA)
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Population-based study of the daily acculturation experiences and academic adaptation of Latino youth in a new receiving community.
- Spatial Health Research Group
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The Spatial Health Research Group focuses on exploring spatio-temporal patterns of disease, primarily infectious diseases of the developing world.
Related CPC Signature Themes:
- TeenWeb: Using the Web to Survey and Inform Urban Adolescents about Health
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TeenWeb examines the ability of the Web to collect information from adolescents and teach them about reproductive health issues, in urban secondary schools in Nairobi, Kenya, and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Related CPC Signature Theme:
- Transfer Project
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The Transfer Project is an innovative research and learning initiative which supports improved knowledge and practice on social transfers in Africa.
Current CPC Grants and Contracts: - Youth and the Great Recession
- Current CPC Grants and Contracts:
44 projects found
