Research Themes
Seven signature themes encompass the population research interests of the Carolina Population Center:
- Family, Fertility, and Children
- Population Diversity and Inequality
- Social and Spatial Contexts of Demographic and Health Behavior
- Economic, Demographic, and Health Transitions
- Population and Environment
- Health Behavior and Infectious Disease
- Demography and Economics of Aging
Family, Fertility, and Children
Family structure has important consequences for children's living circumstances and experiences and their consequent development and outcomes. CPC researchers pursue studies of adolescence, the transition to adulthood, and the effects of nonmarital childbearing, maternal employment, childcare, and health and genetic factors. CPC studies have shown substantial differences in outcomes such as the high-school dropout rate, the rate of "idleness" (neither employed nor in school), and the rate of teen childbearing between children who lived with both biological parents and other children. The most comprehensive study of adolescents ever undertaken is contributing new knowledge on the adolescent-adult transition and its implications for the future.
Population Diversity and Inequality
Research at CPC sheds light on inequalities among racial, ethnic, gender, and socioeconomic groups and implications for the health and well-being of the US population as a whole. For example, CPC explores racial and ethnic classification and its consequences; advances understanding of the high prevalence of birth complications among African-American women in central North Carolina; examines the migration and acculturation experiences of immigrant youth; and improves the measurement of socioeconomic status (SES) to correct for errors in traditional methods.
Social and Spatial Contexts of Demographic and Health Behavior
There is clear evidence that local social and spatial context matter. It is less clear what it is about local context that matters and why. CPC researchers are developing new measures of physical, spatial, and social environments, and incorporating them into studies of demographic and health behavior. For example, researchers assess the role of the built environment on health disparities, use innovative methods to rapidly identify geographic areas most likely to benefit from HIV/AIDS prevention programs, and study social relational contexts.
Economic, Demographic, and Health Transitions
At a time of dramatic shifts in fertility, mortality, health, nutrition, and disease, CPC is addressing issues of scientific and policy significance: fertility and contraceptive use, urbanization and migration, nutrition and health transitions. For example, CPC studies have clarified the role of medical care in contraceptive success/failure, corrected measurements of the impact of community-level variables in multi-level models, and shown that the burden of obesity has shifted from high SES to low SES households in many countries.
Population and Environment
Well-established CPC projects have as their overall goal a better understanding of population processes, human behavior, and agency in the transformation of Earth's surface: in the Ecuadorian Amazon, Tanzania, and Thailand. Other work examines population dynamics in Guatemala and Nepal. In addition CPC investigators are leading five other institutions to further develop the tools and approaches to study land use change and health in frontier environments.
Health Behavior and Infectious Disease
Examining the behavioral as well as the biological influences on infectious diseases is critical to understanding and reducing their spread and improving the health of populations. CPC is addressing critical research questions in the area of sexual behavior and HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections both domestically and internationally, and includes a focus on youth and adolescents and on the role of gender dynamics and mass media. Increasingly, CPC researchers are also monitoring and analyzing other infectious diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis, typhoid, and cholera.
Demography and Economics of Aging
CPC fellows are investigating diverse topics within the demography and economics of aging, including the implications of population aging for labor force participation, retirement income security, and living standards of the elderly; the implications of changes in health, functional capacity, and chronic disease among the elderly; the association between health and demographic, social, and economic factors over the life course; and the nutrition transition and its implications for the health of the elderly.
