Carolina Population Center

Early Childhood Development in Rural China: Evidence from the Qingling Cohort Study
2018-10-19 12:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York)
On Friday, October 19th, Sean Sylvia, PhD, will present Early Childhood Development in Rural China: Evidence from the Qingling Cohort Study as part of the Carolina Population Center 2018-2019 Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series.
Sean Sylvia is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Gillings School of Global Public Health. Dr. Sylvia is a health and development economist whose research focuses on designing and evaluating innovative approaches to improve the delivery of health services in developing countries. His work relies heavily on fieldwork to collect primary data and most uses experimental or quasi-experimental methods to evaluate the causal effects of policies and interventions. In past and ongoing projects, he has studied the design of performance-based incentives for providers, school-based health and nutrition programs, early childhood health and development, and the quality of primary care in low-resource settings. His work has been published journals such as the BMJ, PLOS Medicine, the American Journal of Public Health, Health Affairs, and Health Policy and Planning. He has long-standing collaborations with researchers at a number of universities in China where he has directed several large-scale surveys and randomized trials. Prior to joining UNC, he worked as an Assistant Professor in the School of Economics at Renmin University of China.
PRESENTATION ABSTRACT
A growing body of cross-disciplinary research suggests that human capital deficits in early life negatively affect later life outcomes and that interventions in early childhood can substantially improve health and productivity in adulthood. Given this evidence – and growing recognition that human capital development is an important mechanism affecting the persistence of poverty and inequality – investing in early childhood has risen on the policy agenda in a number of developing countries. The goal of the Qingling cohort study is to inform ECD policies in China. Across five waves of data collection, this study follows a cohort of more than 1800 children in rural areas of southern Shaanxi province from 6 months of age until age 5. Using this unique data, this talk will discuss the nutritional and developmental status of rural children and its evolution in early childhood. It will also present the short and medium-term results of two embedded randomized trials: one testing the effects of micronutrient supplementation and another intervention providing parenting support through home visits by cadres from China’s Family Planning Commission. Although the effects of micronutrient supplementation subside by age 2, we find persistent effects of the parenting intervention on cognitive outcomes. Data on parenting activities are used to explore behavioral mechanisms underlying these results.
Curriculum Vita (PDF)
Instructors: To arrange for class attendance, contact Kate Allison (akalliso@email.unc.edu) by the Monday before the seminar
Streaming may be available and must be arranged at least one week in advance.
This seminar is part of the Carolina Population Center’s Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series.

Hypothesizing Upward: Have U.S. State Policies Widened Inequalities in Life Expectancy?
2018-10-26 12:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York)
On Friday, October 26th, Jennifer Karas Montez, PhD, will present Hypothesizing Upward: Have U.S. State Policies Widened Inequalities in Life Expectancy? as part of the Carolina Population Center 2018-2019 Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series. Montez is a Professor of Sociology, the Gerald B. Cramer Faculty Scholar of Aging Studies, and Co-Director of the Policy, Place, and Population Health Lab at Syracuse University. Her work examines the large and growing inequalities in U.S. adult mortality since the early 1980s. She is particularly interested in why trends in mortality have been most troubling for women, low-educated adults, and states in the South and Midwest.
Professor Montez is hosted by Carolina Population Center Fellow Robert (Bob) Hummer. Hummer is the Howard W. Odum Professor of Sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is also co-PI of the Biosocial Training Program at the Carolina Population Center.
PRESENTATION ABSTRACT
In the United States, life expectancy is increasingly being shaped by where we live and how much schooling we have completed. Why? Most speculation has focused on “micro-level” explanations, such as individuals’ personal choices and lifestyle behaviors. This presentation will discuss the importance of macro-level explanations, particularly U.S. state policies. Weaving together results from several recent and ongoing studies, this presentation will build the case that the diverging policy contexts of U.S. states—resulting from decades of deregulation, devolution of political authority from federal to state levels, and state preemption laws—have likely played a critical role in the widening inequalities in life expectancy.
Curriculum Vita (PDF)
Instructors: To arrange for class attendance, contact Kate Allison (akalliso@email.unc.edu) by the Monday before the seminar
Streaming may be available and must be arranged at least one week in advance.
This seminar is part of the Carolina Population Center’s Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series.

Should We Tax Soda? An Overview of Theory and Evidence
2018-11-02 12:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York)
On Friday, November 2nd, Hunt Allcott, PhD, will present Should We Tax Soda? An Overview of Theory and Evidence as part of the Carolina Population Center 2018-2019 Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series. Allcott is a Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research, an Associate Professor of Economics at New York University, a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a Co-Editor of the Journal of Public Economics. He is a Scientific Director of ideas42, a think tank that applies insights from psychology and economics to business and policy design problems, an Affiliate of Poverty Action Lab, a network of researchers who use randomized evaluations to answer critical policy questions in the fight against poverty, and a Faculty Affiliate of E2e, a group of economists, engineers, and behavioral scientists focused on evaluating and improving energy efficiency policy. He was also a Contributing Author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Report.
Professor Allcott is hosted by Carolina Population Center Fellows Shu Wen Ng and Lindsey Smith Taillie. Ng is an Associate Professor and Taillie is a Research Assistant Professor, both in the Department of Nutrition at UNC-Chapel Hill.
PRESENTATION ABSTRACT
Taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) are growing in popularity and have generated an active public debate. Are they a good idea? If so, how high should they be? Are such taxes regressive? Americans and some others around the world consume a remarkable amount of SSBs, and the evidence suggests that this generates significant health costs. Building on recent work by Allcott, Lockwood, and Taubinsky (2018) and others, we review the basic economic principles for an optimal sin tax on SSBs. The optimal tax depends on (1) externalities: uninternalized costs to the health system from SSB consumption; (2) internalities: costs consumers impose on themselves by overconsuming sweetened beverages due to poor nutrition knowledge or lack of self-control; and (3) regressivity: how much the financial burden and the internality benefits from the tax fall on the poor. We then summarize the empirical evidence on the key parameters that determine how large the tax should be, which suggests that SSB taxes can be welfare enhancing. We end with seven concrete suggestions for policymakers considering an SSB tax.
Curriculum Vita (PDF)
Instructors: To arrange for class attendance, contact Kate Allison (akalliso@email.unc.edu) by the Monday before the seminar
Streaming may be available and must be arranged at least one week in advance.
This seminar is part of the Carolina Population Center’s Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series.

The Socioeconomic Effects of China's Forest Restoration and Conservation Programs
2018-11-09 12:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York)
On Friday, November 9th, Conghe Song, PhD, will present The Socioeconomic Effects of China’s Forest Restoration and Conservation Programs as part of the Carolina Population Center 2018-2019 Interdisciplinary Research Seminar series. Song is Professor and Associate Chair of Geography at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is also the Director of the Graduate Certificate Program of Geographic Information Sciences. His research focuses on understanding the social-ecological consequences of human-environment interactions in the context of climate change.
Professor Song is hosted by Carolina Population Center Fellow Clark Gray. Gray is an Associate Professor of Geography at the UNC-Chapel Hill. His research focuses on population and human-environment interactions in the developing world.
PRESENTATION ABSTRACT
China’s economy had witnessed double digit growth following the adoption of open and reform policy in the late 1970s. However, China’s natural environment did not improve with the economy. In fact, China’s eco-environmental conditions went in the opposite direction with the economy for decades, leading to devastating natural disasters in the late 1990s. As a result, the Chinese government implemented a series of forest restoration and conservation programs to improve the natural environment. The Conversion of Cropland to Forest Program (CCFP) and the Ecological Welfare Forest Program (EWFP) are two of them. CCFP program is the largest reforestation program to date in the world, involving 32 million households and 120 million people in 25 of the 31 provinces in China. China’s forest cover increased 3% as a result. EWFP is a program that preserves natural forests that provide essential ecosystem services. Both CCFP and EWFP are essentially payment for ecosystem services programs. Despite nearly two decades of implementation, the programs’ socioeconomic as well as their ecological effects are not well understood. In this talk, I will present the recent findings from a US-China collaborative project studying the impacts of CCFP on the dynamics of the coupled natural and human systems in Anhui, China. Riding the tide of overall economic growth in China, both CCFP and EWFP have been successful in converting and preserving the land-use, and have exerted profound impacts on rural residents’ livelihoods. I will focus on the program effects on cropland abandonment, fuel wood use and rural out migration in this talk.
Curriculum Vita (PDF)
Instructors: To arrange for class attendance, contact Kate Allison (akalliso@email.unc.edu) by the Monday before the seminar
Streaming may be available and must be arranged at least one week in advance.
This seminar is part of the Carolina Population Center’s Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series.

Networks, Diffusion and Inequality
2018-11-16 12:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York)
On Friday, November 16th, Filiz Garip, PhD, will present Networks, Diffusion and Inequality as part of the Carolina Population Center 2018-2019 Interdisciplinary Research Seminar series. Garip is a Professor of Sociology at Cornell University. She is affiliated with the Center for the Study of Inequality and the Center for Population Research at Cornell. Her research lies at the intersection of migration, economic sociology and inequality.
Garip is hosted by Carolina Population Center Fellow Barbara Entwisle. Entwisle is the Kenan Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She served as CPC Director for eight years (2002-2010) and as CPC’s Training Program Director for six of those years (2002-2008). Entwisle has resumed her role as CPC’s Training Director (2017-date). Entwisle studies social context and demographic and health behavior and outcomes.
PRESENTATION ABSTRACT
Prior work defines network externalities (where the value of a practice is a function of network alters that have already adopted the practice) as a mechanism exacerbating social inequality under the condition of homophily (where advantaged individuals poised to be primary adopters are socially connected to other advantaged individuals). This work does not consider consolidation (correlation between traits), a population parameter that is essential to network formation and diffusion. Using a computational model, we first show that prior findings linking homophily to segregated social ties and to differential diffusion outcomes are contingent on high levels of consolidation. Homophily, under low consolidation, is not sufficient to exacerbate existing differences in adoption probabilities across groups, and can even end up alleviating inter-group inequality by facilitating diffusion. We then apply this idea to the empirical case of Mexico-U.S. migration. We show that homophily and consolidation allow us to capture the structural constraints to diffusion, and explain why some newly-emerging migrant communities eventually come to surpass historic migrant regions in levels of migration.
Curriculum Vita (PDF)
Instructors: To arrange for class attendance, contact Kate Allison (akalliso@email.unc.edu) by the Monday before the seminar
Streaming may be available and must be arranged at least one week in advance.
This seminar is part of the Carolina Population Center’s Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series.

Rethinking the Role Childhood SES Plays in Affecting Adult Health: Integrating Existing Theories with a Life Course Perspective on the Disablement Process
2018-11-30 12:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York)
On Friday, November 30th, Scott Lynch, PhD, will present Rethinking the Role Childhood SES Plays in Affecting Adult Health: Integrating Existing Theories with a Life Course Perspective on the Disablement Process as part of the Carolina Population Center 2018-2019 Interdisciplinary Research Seminar series. Lynch is a Professor of Sociology and the Director of Training in the Population Research Institute at Duke University. His substantive research focuses on life course and cohort patterns in social inequalities in health in the US, by education, income, race, and region. His methodological research focuses on Bayesian methods in demography.
Lynch is hosted by Carolina Population Center Fellow and Center Director Elizabeth Frankenberg. Frankenberg, Professor of Sociology, has served as the Director of Carolina Population Center since 2017.
PRESENTATION ABSTRACT
Mounting evidence indicates that childhood socioeconomic status (SES) has long-term effects on health in later adulthood. However, findings are mixed regarding how it influences health. Specifically, it is unclear whether childhood SES affects adult health only through its role in influencing adult SES or exerts an independent influence on adult health, net of adult SES. Drawing from life course perspectives on the disablement process, we advance and test a theory of “progressive mediation” which suggests that the extent to which childhood SES exerts an independent influence on adult health depends upon the seriousness of the health outcome being considered. We argue that childhood status can have strong residual influences on lesser health conditions and precursors to more serious conditions, while having weak, or no, residual influences on more serious health conditions. Lesser health conditions and precursors arise relatively early in adulthood, but adult socioeconomic resources provide a number of resources that can interrupt or postpone the disease development and disablement process that otherwise may stem from early adulthood conditions. Using longitudinal data from the Health and Retirement Study, we find robust support for this theory.
Instructors: To arrange for class attendance, contact Kate Allison (akalliso@email.unc.edu) by the Monday before the seminar
Streaming may be available and must be arranged at least one week in advance.
This seminar is part of the Carolina Population Center’s Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series.

A Path towards Citizenship: The Effects of Early College High Schools on Criminal Convictions and Voting
2019-01-11 12:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York)
On Friday, January 11, Douglas Lauen, PhD, will present A Path towards Citizenship: The Effects of Early College High Schools on Criminal Convictions and Voting as part of the Carolina Population Center 2018-2019 Interdisciplinary Research Seminar series.
Lauen is an Associate Professor of Public Policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an affiliated faculty member with the Department of Sociology and the Education Policy Initiative at UNC-Chapel Hill. Dr. Lauen’s work examines the effectiveness of educational policies, school types, and interventions on students and how these effects vary for traditionally underserved populations.
Lauen is hosted by Carolina Population Center Fellow Ted Mouw. Mouw is a Professor of Sociology. His research focuses on social mobility and factors that affect the upward mobility of low wage workers.
Friday, Jan 11
12-1
Carolina Square Room 2002
123 West Franklin Street
Location information is here.
PRESENTATION ABSTRACT
Formal schooling is critically important to human capital development and socialization. Those with more education enjoy many benefits – higher income, better health, and longer lives, to name just three. Education also produces positive externalities beyond individual benefits. Highly educated people are more likely to vote, become civically involved, and are less likely to commit crimes. For this reason, virtually all cultures subsidize education, although the quantity and nature of this support varies across countries. While we know a great deal about the broad effects of educational attainment on civic outcomes, we actually know very little about the effects of specific educational interventions on these types of outcomes, in part because long term follow-up studies are rare.
This talk will present early findings from a long term follow up study of early college high schools (ECHS) from North Carolina. ECHS are small schools of choice that provide students with the opportunity to earn, at no financial cost to them, two years of transferable college credit or an Associate’s degree while simultaneously satisfying high school graduation requirements. This promising intervention is aimed at smoothing the transition from high school to college for under-represented demographic groups. There are more than 85 ECHSs in North Carolina, although the model is implemented in more than 30 states in the U.S. as well.
The study team assembled personally-identified population level statewide administrative data on all NC high school students (including ECHS) and linked it to postsecondary enrollment and completion data (through in-state four-year and two-year institutions and the National Student Clearinghouse), incarceration records (from the NC Department of Public Safety), and voting records (from the NC Board of Elections). Together, these data comprise one of the most comprehensive data sources in the U.S. to study the effects of educational interventions.
Our results show that early colleges have positive effects on test scores and post-secondary degree attainment. The intervention also reduces the likelihood of incarceration and increases the likelihood of voting. We argue that the effects on crime are likely robust to unmeasured confounding, while the effects on voting most likely are not. Quasi-experimental impacts for some outcomes have been validated against impacts generated from a randomized controlled trial of the same intervention in a subset of the sites during the same time period.
CV for Douglas Lauen, PhD.
Instructors: To arrange for class attendance, contact CPC at cpc@unc.edu by the Monday before the seminar
Streaming may be available and must be arranged at least one week in advance.
This seminar is part of the Carolina Population Center’s Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series.

Mucking about with Maps: Integrating Remote Sensing and Archival Maps in West Africa
2019-01-18 12:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York)
On Friday, January 18, 2019, Colin West, PhD, will present Mucking about with Maps: Integrating Remote Sensing and Archival Maps in West Africa as part of the Carolina Population Center 2018-2019 Interdisciplinary Research Seminar series.
West is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a Faculty Fellow at the Carolina Population Center.
West is hosted by Carolina Population Center Fellow and Center Director Elizabeth Frankenberg. Frankenberg, Professor of Sociology, has served as the Director of Carolina Population Center since 2017.
Friday, Jan 18
12-1
Carolina Square Room 2002
123 West Franklin Street
Location information is here.
PRESENTATION ABSTRACT
Land degradation is a complex global challenge that has historically attracted strong interdisciplinary scholarship. Especially in the world’s drylands, social and physical scientists have long collaborated on applied research to understand the drivers of desertification – land degradation in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas. In fact, the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD – 1996) explicitly recognizes it as a both a human and physical process. This presentation presents preliminary results on mapping both land degradation and rehabilitation in the Sahel of West Africa. Using archival maps of land-use/land-cover (LULC) and high-resolution satellite imagery, we explore how patterns of browning and greening vary across communities.
This talk will present three of our efforts to “muck around with maps” to identify areas of “greening” and “browning” in northern Burkina Faso. My colleague, Dr. Aaron Moody in the Dept. of Geography is a remote sensing expert and out effort has been guided by CPC’s pioneering work to “pixelize the social” and “socialize the pixel.” Northern Burkina Faso is a region where communities have invested heavily in widespread Soil and Water Conservation (SWC) measures. Experts have suggested that these local SWC investments may explain larger regional patterns of greening. The first part presents on our work combining a time series of Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI and Rainfall Estimate (RFE) to identify areas of greening and browning in Burkina Faso. The second presents our work converting archival maps of Land-Use/Land-cover from Yatenga, Burkina Faso to GIS layers using remote sensing and image processing techniques. The last part presents our work mapping localized greening and browning through participatory mapping and high-resolution satellite imagery. These demonstrate the utility of combining ethnography with remote sensing analysis to better understand LULC processes and patterns.
Instructors: To arrange for class attendance, contact CPC at cpc@unc.edu by the Monday before the seminar
Streaming may be available and must be arranged at least one week in advance.
This seminar is part of the Carolina Population Center’s Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series.

Early Childhood Development in Rural China: Evidence from the Qingling Cohort Study
2019-01-25 12:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York)
On Friday, January 25, Sean Sylvia, PhD, will present Early Childhood Development in Rural China: Evidence from the Qingling Cohort Study as part of the Carolina Population Center 2018-2019 Interdisciplinary Research Seminar series.
Sean Sylvia is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Gillings School of Global Public Health. Dr. Sylvia is a health and development economist whose research focuses on designing and evaluating innovative approaches to improve the delivery of health services in developing countries. His work relies heavily on fieldwork to collect primary data and most uses experimental or quasi-experimental methods to evaluate the causal effects of policies and interventions. In past and ongoing projects, he has studied the design of performance-based incentives for providers, school-based health and nutrition programs, early childhood health and development, and the quality of primary care in low-resource settings. His work has been published journals such as the BMJ, PLOS Medicine, the American Journal of Public Health, Health Affairs, and Health Policy and Planning. He has long-standing collaborations with researchers at a number of universities in China where he has directed several large-scale surveys and randomized trials. Prior to joining UNC, he worked as an Assistant Professor in the School of Economics at Renmin University of China.
Sylvia is hosted by Carolina Population Center Fellow and Center Director Elizabeth Frankenberg. Frankenberg, Professor of Sociology, has served as the Director of Carolina Population Center since 2017.
Friday, Jan 25
12-1
Carolina Square Room 2002
123 West Franklin Street
Location information is here.
PRESENTATION ABSTRACT
A growing body of cross-disciplinary research suggests that human capital deficits in early life negatively affect later life outcomes and that interventions in early childhood can substantially improve health and productivity in adulthood. Given this evidence – and growing recognition that human capital development is an important mechanism affecting the persistence of poverty and inequality – investing in early childhood has risen on the policy agenda in a number of developing countries. The goal of the Qingling cohort study is to inform ECD policies in China. Across five waves of data collection, this study follows a cohort of more than 1800 children in rural areas of southern Shaanxi province from 6 months of age until age 5. Using this unique data, this talk will discuss the nutritional and developmental status of rural children and its evolution in early childhood. It will also present the short and medium-term results of two embedded randomized trials: one testing the effects of micronutrient supplementation and another intervention providing parenting support through home visits by cadres from China’s Family Planning Commission. Although the effects of micronutrient supplementation subside by age 2, we find persistent effects of the parenting intervention on cognitive outcomes. Data on parenting activities are used to explore behavioral mechanisms underlying these results.
Curriculum Vita (PDF)
Instructors: To arrange for class attendance, contact CPC at cpc@unc.edu by the Monday before the seminar
Streaming may be available and must be arranged at least one week in advance.
This seminar is part of the Carolina Population Center’s Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series.

A Large-Scale Binational Survey of International Migrants from Rural Bangladesh
2019-02-01 12:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York)
On Friday, February 1, Randall Kuhn, PhD, will present A Large-Scale Binational Survey of International Migrants from Rural Bangladesh as part of the Carolina Population Center 2018-2019 Interdisciplinary Research Seminar series.
Randall Kuhn is a demographer and sociologist focused on the social determinants of health, program evaluation, global health, immigrant health and homelessness. In Bangladesh, he leads a 35-year evaluation of the effects of randomized child and reproductive health interventions on health and socioeconomic change across generations. He also leads a binational survey of the health and well-being of guest workers and their left-behind families. His cross-national research explores the effectiveness of global health policies and the role of improvements in health as a driver of social and political change. Kuhn’s methodological expertise includes longitudinal data analysis, experimental and quasi-experimental research design, forecasting, and integrated data systems. Kuhn founded the Goal 18 campaign for inclusive UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Kuhn is hosted by Carolina Population Center Fellow Robert (Bob) Hummer. Hummer is the Howard W. Odum Professor of Sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is also co-PI of the Biosocial Training Program at the Carolina Population Center.
Friday, Feb 1
12-1
Carolina Square Room 2002
123 West Franklin Street
Location information is here.
PRESENTATION ABSTRACT
This study uses three rounds of survey data on respondents from the Matlab area of Bangladesh to compare the health of international migrants, interviewed in person and by phone, to that of non-migrants and internal migrants drawn from the same sample. To our knowledge, this is the largest binational panel study of migrant health yet conducted. We control for baseline conditions, account for self-selection and address the role of country of destination, return migration and duration. Results from a 2012-14 survey of migrants and non-migrants find that migrants fare better on measures of health that are reflective of self-selection (i.e. general health, smoking, positive dimensions of mental health). Migrants fare better or no worse on acute risks associated with the migration process such as mortality and injury. Yet they fare moderately worse on emerging chronic health factors such as obesity, hypertension and negative dimensions of mental health. These findings point to a model of health capital, in which migrants’ unique physical and emotional gifts are gradually eroded by the insults of the migration process. The seminar will include emerging results from a 2017-18 follow-up survey of migrants that explores the specific role of migrant recruitment, finance, social networks, occupational risk and context of integration in explaining migrant health trajectories.
Instructors: To arrange for class attendance, contact CPC at cpc@unc.edu by the Monday before the seminar
Streaming may be available and must be arranged at least one week in advance.
This seminar is part of the Carolina Population Center’s Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series.

Frontiers in Women's Nutrition: Agenda for Research and Action
2019-02-08 12:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York)
On Friday, February 8, Parul Christian, DrPH, MSc, will present Frontiers in Women’s Nutrition: Agenda for Research and Action as part of the Carolina Population Center 2018-2019 Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series.
Parul Christian leads the Women’s Nutrition portfolio as Senior Program Officer on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Nutrition Program Team in Global Development. She is also Professor of International Health and Human Nutrition at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. Christian’s nutrition research has contributed policy relevant knowledge related to the impact of maternal and infant/child nutrition interventions in improving pregnancy-related outcomes, including fetal growth, maternal and infant health and survival, child growth, as well as long-term outcomes of child cognition, and cardiometabolic risk.
Christian is hosted by Carolina Population Center Fellow Margaret E. Bentley. Bentley is the Chamblee Distinguished Professor of Nutrition, Associate Dean for Global Health, and Associate Director of the Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases at UNC-Chapel Hill.
Friday, Feb 8
12-1
Carolina Square Room 2002
123 West Franklin Street
Location information is here.
PRESENTATION ABSTRACT
Women and girls hold roles in their communities that make them drivers of development as individuals, and influencers of the health and well-being of their families. To equip women and girls to succeed in school, maximize work productivity and have their own healthy children in the future, they must receive the appropriate nutrition right from the start. In this way, well-nourished girls and women can achieve their potential and meaningfully contribute to their communities. Globally, about 23 million children are born small-for-gestational age (SGA), 15 million are preterm birth, and around 160 million children are stunted by the end of the first two years of life. Maternal underweight, short stature, inadequate pregnancy weight gain, and micronutrient deficiencies contribute to the high burden of SGA, which is associated with an increased risk of infant mortality, childhood stunting, and poor neurodevelopment. Efficacious nutritional interventions during pregnancy include supplementation with balanced energy-protein, iron-folic acid, and multiple micronutrients. However, constraints exist in the availability of nutritious food products that can be used for supplementing women, requiring more research on product development. More research is also needed to fully combat the problem of adverse pregnancy outcomes of preterm birth, pre-eclampsia (PE), and stillbirth. For example, low dose calcium may work to reduce the risk of PE, which is currently hard to implement in large scale programs due to cost and adherence barriers. Risk factors such as maternal young age, prepregnancy underweight and stunting, and prevention
/treatment of maternal infections require new and multi-pronged strategies in adolescence and preconception; addressing these in part may alleviate a significant burden of fetal growth failure and preterm birth. Data show that growth failure in the first 6 months of life is high in part related to small birth size, but maternal nutritional support during lactation may also be important. Thus, there is an overwhelming need to combine implementation learning with new research to impact the nutritional wellbeing of pregnant and lactating women, women of reproductive age, and young girls – a neglected agenda in low and middle income settings. The talk will highlight the priorities and new frontiers in women’s nutrition.
Instructors: To arrange for class attendance, contact CPC at cpc@unc.edu by the Monday before the seminar
Streaming may be available and must be arranged at least one week in advance.
This seminar is part of the Carolina Population Center’s Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series.

Research Methods Seminar: An Overview of Autoregressive, Latent Growth Curve, and ALT Models for Longitudinal Data
2019-02-15 12:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York)
On Friday, February 15, Kenneth Bollen, PhD, will present An Overview of Autoregressive, Latent Growth Curve, and ALT Models for Longitudinal Data: CPC Research Methods Seminar as part of the Carolina Population Center 2018-2019 Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series.
Professor Bollen is the Henry Rudolph Immerwahr Distinguished Professor, Psychology & Neuroscience and Department of Sociology at UNC-Chapel Hill. His research focuses on developing statistical methodology with applications across a range of population and health areas. His expertise on latent variable structural equation models provides a means to control for measurement error when testing hypotheses. As a statistical consultant for CPC, Bollen provides statistical advice for many CPC Fellows and students.
Friday, Feb 15
12-1
Carolina Square Room 2002
123 West Franklin Street
Location information is here.
PRESENTATION ABSTRACT
A wide variety of models are applied to analyze longitudinal data. This seminar provides an overview of three popular ones: the latent growth curve (LGC), the autoregressive (AR), and the autoregressive latent trajectory (ALT) longitudinal models. The seminar presents each model and discusses their parameters and interpretation. I use an empirical example to illustrate each model and how to program them using structural equation modeling software.

Biological Mediators and Moderators of Social Disadvantage
2019-02-22 12:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York)
On Friday, February 22, Colter Mitchell, PhD will present Biological Mediators and Moderators of Social Disadvantage as part of the Carolina Population Center 2018-2019 Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series.
Mitchell is Research Assistant Professor of the Survey Research Center at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor and is a Faculty Associate of the University of Michigan Population Studies Center.
Mitchell is hosted by Carolina Population Center Fellow Guang Guo. Guo is Dr. George and Alice Welsh Distinguished Professor of Sociology. Guo is a CPC Training Program Alum: he was a Postdoctoral Fellow from 1991-1993.
Professor Mitchell is part of an NIH initiative to explore social epigenomics related to health disparities.
Friday, Feb 22
12-1
Carolina Square Room 2002
123 West Franklin Street
Location information is here.
PRESENTATION ABSTRACT
Measures of social disadvantage such as poverty, parental incarceration, and family instability have well documented health and behavioral consequences for children, which can even reach into adulthood. Social disadvantage likely operates through both social and biological mechanisms; however, only in the last decade and a half have we seen a rapid increase in the integration of social science and biology. I investigate biological correlates of social disadvantage using the Fragile Family and Child Wellbeing Study (n=4898), a population-based sample of children born in hospitals in 20 cities in the US. Families have been studied at birth and ages 1,3,5,9, and 15, with additions of genetic, epigenetic, and neuroimaging data collected more recently. Due to the study design the sample is racially and ethnically diverse and has lower SES levels than most large national studies— making it exceptionally rare within biosocial research. Of particular interest here are the correlations with genomic (polygenic scores, and changes in epigenetic profiles and telomere length) and functional and structural neuroimaging measures with the effect of cumulative disadvantage and timing of social disadvantage.
Research project: “Epigenetic Mediation of Adverse Social Context on Stress Response, Socioemotional Development, and Health in a Population-based Study of Minority and Low SES Children and Adolescents”
Selected publications

Did We Botch the Notch? Investigating the Social Security Notch Literature and Use of the Health and Retirement Study
2019-03-01 12:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York)
On Friday, March 1, Jeremy Moulton, PhD, will present Did We Botch the Notch? Investigating the Social Security Notch Literature and Use of the Health and Retirement Study as part of the Carolina Population Center 2018-2019 Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series.
Moulton is an Associate Professor in the Department of Public Policy at UNC-Chapel Hill. His research investigates the intended and unintended consequences of public policy on labor supply, consumption, retirement, self-employment, real estate, and the intergenerational transmission of wealth and education.
Moulton is hosted by Carolina Population Center Fellow and Center Director Elizabeth Frankenberg. Frankenberg, Professor of Sociology, has served as the Director of Carolina Population Center since 2017.
Friday, Mar 1
12-1
Carolina Square Room 2002
123 West Franklin Street
Location information is here.
PRESENTATION ABSTRACT
The Social Security Amendments of 1972 and 1977, often referred to as the “Social Security Notch,” have been exploited as a natural experiment by researchers across numerous literatures to estimate causal relationships between income and an array of different outcomes. In this paper, we investigate whether a demographic or sampling shift potentially confounds results from Notch papers that use the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), a popular data source for many of these studies. Specifically, we find a large discontinuous shift in the proportion of non-white respondents in the HRS starting with the 1917 birth cohort (i.e., those adversely affected by the Social Security Amendments), which we conclude is due to sampling problems in the HRS. To determine whether this confounds key results in the literature, we replicate three papers with different empirical approaches that used the HRS in their analysis of the Social Security Notch (Moulton, 2017; Goda et al, 2010; and Moran and Simon, 2006) and test the extent to which the results hold after accounting for the sampling issue. Overall, the results imply that the Social Security Notch literature and other work using the HRS data should carefully consider this issue.

Labor Supply and a Temporary Reprieve from Deportation: Evidence from the DACA Program
2019-03-22 12:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York)
On Friday, March 22, Joaquin Alfredo-Angel Rubalcaba, PhD, will present Labor Supply and a Temporary Reprieve from Deportation: Evidence from the DACA Program as part of the Carolina Population Center 2018-2019 Interdisciplinary Research Seminar series.
Rubalcaba is an assistant professor in the Department of Public Policy at UNC-Chapel Hill. His areas of interests broadly include health and labor economics. Specifically, he has explored the health and labor market outcomes among underrepresented and disadvantaged communities, while developing new empirical techniques to investigate the economic mechanisms and public policies driving these outcomes.
Rubalcaba is hosted by Carolina Population Center Fellow Sudhanshu (Ashu) Handa. Handa is the Lawrence I. Gilbert Distinguished Professor of Public Policy at UNC-Chapel Hill.
Friday, Mar 22
12-1
Carolina Square Room 2002
123 West Franklin Street
Location information is here.
PRESENTATION ABSTRACT
Approximately 800,000 unauthorized immigrants have participated in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, receiving deportation deferment and work eligibility. This paper investigates the impact of the DACA program on the labor supply of unauthorized immigrant youth, with a focus on the gender disparities in the labor market. We leverage an imputed immigration status as a mechanism for identification in a triple-differences model. Our results reveal DACA increased labor force participation by 3 to 4 percentage points among immigrant youth, which is primarily attributable to women with previous employment experience. The change in labor force participation among DACA eligible women is estimated to be approximately 3 percentage points greater than the estimated change in labor force participation among DACA eligible men, or approximately 27,000 women. The results presented throughout the analysis suggests DACA played a role in contracting the glaring gender disparity, measured in terms of labor force participation, among the unauthorized immigrant population. This study provides a unique insight into the relationship between immigration policy and labor supply behavior at the intersection of immigration status and gender.

Biomarker Expert Panel
2019-03-29 12:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York)
This panel will focus on challenges and opportunities related to inclusion of biomarkers in large population surveys, addressing:
What are the most informative, cutting edge methods and markers for use in population research? (Whole blood by venipuncture, dried blood spots, urine, feces, other tissues for analysis of the microbiome, metabolomics, disease and nutrient markers, and quantification of the exposome).
What informs decisions around inclusion of biomarkers in study protocols?
Feasibility: What is field-friendly?
Cost
Respondent burden
Establishing collaborations with lab science experts
Ethics: what are responsibilities around return of results?
This panel includes principal investigators of large population based studies with experience in measurement of biomarkers.
Linda Adair: The Cebu Longitudinal Health and Nutrition Survey; ECHO
Kathleen Harris: The National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent to Adult Health
Elizabeth Frankenberg: The Indonesia Family Life Survey (IFLS), the Work and Iron Status Evaluation (WISE), the Study of the Tsunami Aftermath and Recovery (STAR) and the Mexican Family Life Survey (MxFLS).
Katie Meyer: Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults Study (CARDIA)

Attainment Goals, Attainment Gaps: Understanding North Carolina’s Education Pipeline
2019-04-05 12:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York) | Carolina Square Room 2002, 123 W. Franklin St, Chapel Hill, NC, 27516
On Friday, April 5, Rebecca Tippett, PhD, will present Attainment Goals, Attainment Gaps: Understanding North Carolina’s Education Pipeline as part of the Carolina Population Center 2018-2019 Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series.
Tippett is the Director of Carolina Demography. Located within the Carolina Population Center at UNC-Chapel Hill, Carolina Demography helps North Carolina’s leaders make sense of population-level changes throughout the state. Offering a full array of demographic data and research consulting services, Carolina Demography draws on the Center’s global expertise and 50+ years’ experience in population research. The work of their outstanding community of scholars informs decision making, planning, and program evaluation for businesses, foundations, government agencies, schools, and not-for-profit organizations who need to better understand their communities and environments. For more information, please visit https://demography.cpc.unc.edu.

Monitoring Health Progress: From Global Estimates to Local Health Data
2019-04-26 12:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York)
On Friday, April 26, Ties Boerma, PhD, will present Monitoring Health Progress: From Global Estimates to Local Health Data as part of the Carolina Population Center 2018-2019 Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series.
Boerma is Professor and Canada Research Chair for Population and Global Health at the Centre for Global Public Health, Department of Community Health Sciences, University of Manitoba, Canada, and Director of the Countdown to 2030 for Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health. He has over 30 years of experience working in global public health and research programs, including 10 years at national and districts levels in Africa. Boerma served as Director of the Evaluation project, precursor to today’s MEASURE Evaluation, while holding an appointment as Associate Professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has directed the World Health Organization’s work on health information and evidence for 12 years, and has worked for bilateral donors, national governments and research institutions, and published extensively on AIDS, maternal and child health, health information systems and statistics in epidemiological, demographic, and public health journals. A national of the Netherlands, he received his medical degree from the University of Groningen, and a PhD in Medical Demography from the University of Amsterdam.
Boerma is hosted by Carolina Population Center Fellow Sharon Weir. Weir is a Research Assistant Professor, Epidemiology in the Gillings School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Weir has collaborated with UNAIDS and the World Health Organization since 2009, co-chairing a working group to develop operational guidelines for monitoring and evaluation of HIV prevention and treatment programs for people who inject drugs, sex workers, men who have sex with men and transgender people

Work, Family and Health: Understanding Diverging Trends in Life Expectancy
2019-04-29 15:30 - 16:30 (America/New_York)
On Monday, April 29th, Lisa Berkman, PhD, will present Work, Family and Health: Understanding Diverging Trends in Life Expectancy as part of the J. Richard Udry Distinguished Lecture series at Carolina Population Center.
Berkman is the Director of the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, the Director of Harvard’s PhD program in Population Health Sciences, and the Thomas D. Cabot Professor of Public Policy, Epidemiology, and Global Health and Population. She is the principal investigator of the Health and Aging Study in Africa: A Longitudinal Study of an INDEPTH Community in South Africa (HAALSI), funded by the National Institute on Aging. She recently served as co-PI on the Work, Family & Health Network, a study on workplace practices and employee and family health.
This presentation is part of the J. Richard Udry Distinguished Lecture series. Dick Udry’s research was highly innovative and interdisciplinary—features that he embedded in the Carolina Population Center’s practices and culture as its Director. In recognition of his enduring contributions, CPC named its distinguished lecture series in his honor. Previous presenters have included Dr. Douglas Massey, Professor of Sociology at Princeton University (2018) and Dr. John Bongaarts, Vice President and Distinguished Scholar of the Population Council (2017).

Ryan Masters: Trends in Drug Availability, Economic Distress, and Drug-related Mortality among U.S. Whites
2019-08-30 12:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York) | Carolina Square Room 2002, 123 W. Franklin St, Chapel Hill, NC, 27516
On August 30, 2019, Ryan Masters will present “Trends in Drug Availability, Economic Distress, and Drug-related Mortality among U.S. Whites” as part of the Carolina Population Series 2019-2020 Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series.
Ryan Masters is a social demographer by training with interests in examining long-term trends in US morbidity, chronic diseases, and mortality rates.
The Carolina Population Center hosts a weekly Friday lecture on a topic that enhances our understanding of population-related changes. The 2019-2020 Interdisciplinary Research Seminars will feature talks related to aging trajectories, health behavior, the Zika virus, and the beverage tax – among other topics.
All seminars are held from 12:00 – 1:00 pm in Carolina Square Room 2002 at 123 W. Franklin St. unless otherwise indicated.
Instructors: To arrange for class attendance, contact CPC (cpc@unc.edu) by the Monday before the seminar. Streaming may be available and must be arranged at least one week in advance.

CANCELED: Teresa Seeman: Aging Trajectories Through Biopsychosocial Lens
2019-09-06 12:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York) | Carolina Square Room 2002, 123 W. Franklin St, Chapel Hill, NC, 27516
Due to Hurricane Dorian, this week’s interdisciplinary research seminar series lecture has been canceled. Please visit https://www.cpc.unc.edu/events/2019-2020-interdisciplinary-research-seminars for the latest news about the 2019-2020 seminar series.
On Friday, September 6, Teresa Seeman will present “Aging Trajectories Through Biopsychosocial Lens” as part of the Carolina Population Series 2019-2020 Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series.
Teresa Seeman, PhD, is Professor of Epidemiology at the Fielding School of Public Health and of Medicine in the Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. Trained as an epidemiologist, with post-doctoral training in neuroendocrinology, her research interests are inter-disciplinary, focusing on role of social and psychological factors in health and aging, with particular interest in elucidating the biological pathways through which such factors impact on health. Working in both community- and laboratory-based contexts, her work has documented the widespread health effects of protective social factors (e.g., social relationships) and psychological characteristics (e.g., control beliefs, perceptions of self-efficacy), including effects on risks for physical and cognitive decline as well as overall longevity. Her research has also contributed to our understanding of how these social and psychological influences are mediated through multiple major biological regulatory systems. She has been a leader in empirical research on a multi-systems view of biological risk – allostatic load. Her work has shown that levels of allostatic load predict subsequent health outcomes, and that differences in allostatic load are related to social factors, including levels of social integration and support as well as more traditional measures of socio-economic status [SES]: higher allostatic load seen among those reporting less social integration and/or support and lower SES. Her current research is focused on developing more integrated models that incorporate consideration of life-course experiences with stressful and protective conditions and the cumulative impacts of these experiences on major biological regulatory systems that determine trajectories of health and longevity.
The Carolina Population Center hosts a weekly Friday lecture on a topic that enhances our understanding of population-related changes. The 2019-2020 Interdisciplinary Research Seminars will feature talks related to aging trajectories, health behavior, the Zika virus, and the beverage tax – among other topics.
All seminars are held from 12:00 – 1:00 pm in Carolina Square Room 2002 at 123 W. Franklin St. unless otherwise indicated.
Instructors: To arrange for class attendance, contact CPC (cpc@unc.edu) by the Monday before the seminar. Streaming may be available and must be arranged at least one week in advance.

Jessica Faul: Where Do We Go from Here? Incorporating Genetics into Social Science and Health Research in the GWAS Era
2019-09-13 12:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York) | Carolina Square Room 2002, 123 W. Franklin St, Chapel Hill, NC, 27516
On 9/13/2019, Jessica Faul will present “Where Do We Go from Here? Incorporating Genetics into Social Science and Health Research in the GWAS Era” as part of the Carolina Population Series 2019-2020 Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series.
Dr. Faul studies health and cognitive functioning, health disparities, and the integration of genetic and social science data in health research. She has worked with HRS core and restricted data files, examining genetic, gene-environment, and socioeconomic determinants of health and using longitudinal modeling and time-varying predictors of health outcomes.
Seminar abstract:
There has been a significant increase in the number of population-based and social-science surveys adding genetic data over the last decade. This has dramatically expanded the reach of these studies by making rich phenotypic data of interest to researchers from a wide variety of disciplines in the biological and health sciences. The expansion of population-based phenotypic, environmental and genomic data, plus the growing interest in integrating the behavioral and social sciences with biology, has the incredible potential for cutting edge science. Large-scale genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified genes with significant and replicated evidence of association with cognitive and physical function measures, longevity, obesity, health behaviors, and educational attainment, to name a few; however, the size of the genetic effects found to date, while increasing, explain only a fraction of trait variability. So where do we go next? This talk will focus on what we’ve learned from the GWAS era, provide research-based examples of theoretical frameworks and methodological approaches for integrating social and genomic data that move beyond GWAS, and will conclude with a discussion of what hurdles remain and what the future may hold for genetic research in a social science context including a discussion of issues related to biological data collection in a field setting.
The Carolina Population Center hosts a weekly Friday lecture on a topic that enhances our understanding of population-related changes. The 2019-2020 Interdisciplinary Research Seminars will feature talks related to aging trajectories, health behavior, the Zika virus, and the beverage tax – among other topics.
All seminars are held from 12:00 – 1:00 pm in Carolina Square Room 2002 at 123 W. Franklin St. unless otherwise indicated.

Stephanie Martin: Engaging Family Members to Support Maternal and Child Nutrition
2019-09-20 12:00 - 13:00 UTC
On Friday, September 20, Stephanie Martin will present “Engaging Family Members to Support Maternal and Child Nutrition” as part of the Carolina Population Series 2019-2020 Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series.
Streaming information: Zoom Meeting https://zoom.us/j/807016500
Stephanie Martin is an assistant professor of Nutrition at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with more than 15 years’ experience designing and implementing behavioral interventions in low-income countries. Dr. Martin’s research focuses on the evaluation of behavioral interventions to improve maternal and child nutrition, implementation research to facilitate the translation of global recommendations into effective programs, and mixed-methods research to examine barriers and facilitators to infant and young child care and feeding practices.She is particularly interested in behavioral interventions to increase social support, and is currently examining family members’ experiences supporting women for improved maternal and child nutrition in Kenya and Tanzania. As a global health practitioner, Dr. Martin implemented policy-, facility- and community-level programs, and developed dozens of training and communication materials to promote maternal, child and adolescent health and nutrition, as well as HIV prevention, care and treatment.
The Carolina Population Center hosts a weekly Friday lecture on a topic that enhances our understanding of population-related changes. The 2019-2020 Interdisciplinary Research Seminars will feature talks related to aging trajectories, health behavior, the Zika virus, and the beverage tax – among other topics.
All seminars are held from 12:00 – 1:00 pm in Carolina Square Room 2002 at 123 W. Franklin St. unless otherwise indicated.
Instructors: To arrange for class attendance, contact CPC (cpc@unc.edu) by the Monday before the seminar.

Leticia Marteleto: Live Births and Fertility amidst the Zika Epidemic
2019-09-27 12:00 - 13:00 UTC | Carolina Square Room 2002, 123 W. Franklin St, Chapel Hill, NC, 27516
On 9/27/2019, Leticia Marteleto will present “Live Births and Fertility amidst the Zika Epidemic” as part of the Carolina Population Series 2019-2020 Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series.
Streaming information: Zoom Meeting https://zoom.us/j/196588418
Leticia J. Marteleto (Ph.D., Sociology, University of Michigan) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and a Faculty Research Associate of the Population Research Center at The University of Texas at Austin. She is also a research affiliate at the Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies at the same university. She is currently serving as Associate Chair of the Department of Sociology. She was Associate Chair of the Department of Sociology at The University of Texas at Austin from 2014 to 2018. Recent research has appeared in Demography, Demographic Research, Population and Development Review, Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, Social Forces and Studies in Family Planning. Her recent research has been funded by NICHD and NSF. In her newest research, funded through an NICHD R01, she focuses on inequalities in women’s reproductive behaviors and outcomes related to the Zika epidemic in Brazil.
The Carolina Population Center hosts a weekly Friday lecture on a topic that enhances our understanding of population-related changes. The 2019-2020 Interdisciplinary Research Seminars will feature talks related to aging trajectories, health behavior, the Zika virus, and the beverage tax – among other topics.
All seminars are held from 12:00 – 1:00 pm in Carolina Square Room 2002 at 123 W. Franklin St. unless otherwise indicated.
Instructors: To arrange for class attendance, contact CPC (cpc@unc.edu) by the Monday before the seminar.

William Pan: Dying for Gold: Health, Environmental, and Social Impacts of Artisanal Gold Mining
2019-10-04 12:00 - 13:00 UTC | Carolina Square Room 2002, 123 W. Franklin St, Chapel Hill, NC, 27516
On Friday, October 4, William Pan will present “Dying for Gold: Health, Environmental, and Social Impacts of Artisanal Gold Mining” as part of the Carolina Population Series 2019-2020 Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series.
Streaming information: Zoom Meeting https://zoom.us/j/493888866
William Pan is an Associate Professor of Global Environmental Health at Duke University with appointments in the Duke Global Health Institute (DGHI) and Nicholas School of Environment. He has over 15 years of experience studying the impact of human-environment dynamics on health, with a focus on tropical regions in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).
The Carolina Population Center hosts a weekly Friday lecture on a topic that enhances our understanding of population-related changes. The 2019-2020 Interdisciplinary Research Seminars will feature talks related to aging trajectories, health behavior, the Zika virus, and the beverage tax – among other topics.
All seminars are held from 12:00 – 1:00 pm in Carolina Square Room 2002 at 123 W. Franklin St. unless otherwise indicated.
Instructors: To arrange for class attendance, contact CPC (cpc@unc.edu) by the Monday before the seminar. Streaming may be available and must be arranged at least one week in advance.

Sara Bleich: The Philadelphia Beverage Tax: Changes in Prices and Sales
2019-10-11 12:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York) | Carolina Square Room 2002, 123 W. Franklin St, Chapel Hill, NC, 27516
On Friday, October 11, Sara Bleich will present “The Philadelphia Beverage Tax: Changes in Prices and Sales” as part of the Carolina Population Series 2019-2020 Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series.
Streaming information: Zoom meeting https://zoom.us/j/502678783
Sara Bleich is a Professor of Public Health Policy at the Harvard Chan School of Public Health in the Department of Health Policy and Management. She is also the Carol K. Pforzheimer Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study and a member of the faculty at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
Sara’s research provides evidence to support policies to prevent obesity and diet-related diseases, particularly among vulnerable populations. A signature theme throughout her work is an interest in asking simple, meaningful questions which can fill important knowledge gaps. Sara’s research has been published in journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine, British Medical Journal, Health Affairs, and American Journal of Public Health and has been featured in outlets such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and National Public Radio.
Sara has received numerous awards including one for excellence in public interest communication. Sara served as a White House Fellow from 2015 to 2016 where she worked as a Senior Policy Advisor to the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the First Lady’s Let’s Move initiative. She holds degrees from Columbia (BA, Psychology) and Harvard (PhD, Health Policy).
The Carolina Population Center hosts a weekly Friday lecture on a topic that enhances our understanding of population-related changes. The 2019-2020 Interdisciplinary Research Seminars will feature talks related to aging trajectories, health behavior, the Zika virus, and the beverage tax – among other topics.
All seminars are held from 12:00 – 1:00 pm in Carolina Square Room 2002 at 123 W. Franklin St. unless otherwise indicated.
Instructors: To arrange for class attendance, contact CPC (cpc@unc.edu) by the Monday before the seminar. Streaming may be available and must be arranged at least one week in advance.

Jennie Brand: Uncovering Treatment Effect Heterogeneity using Machine Learning
2019-10-25 12:00 - 13:00 UTC | Carolina Square Room 2002, 123 W. Franklin St, Chapel Hill, NC, 27516
On Friday, October 25, Jennie Brand will present “Uncovering Treatment Effect Heterogeneity using Machine Learning” as part of the Carolina Population Series 2019-2020 Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series.
Streaming information: Zoom Meeting https://zoom.us/j/889917518
Jennie E. Brand is Professor of Sociology and Statistics at UCLA.
She is also Director of the California Center for Population Research and Co-Director of the Center for Social Statistics (CSS). Prof. Brand studies social stratification and inequality, and its implications for various outcomes that indicate life chances. Her research agenda encompasses three main areas: (1) access to and the impact of higher education; (2) the consequences of disruptive events, such as job displacement; and (3) causal inference and quantitative methods for panel data.
The Carolina Population Center hosts a weekly Friday lecture on a topic that enhances our understanding of population-related changes. The 2019-2020 Interdisciplinary Research Seminars will feature talks related to aging trajectories, health behavior, the Zika virus, and the beverage tax – among other topics.
All seminars are held from 12:00 – 1:00 pm in Carolina Square Room 2002 at 123 W. Franklin St. unless otherwise indicated.
Instructors: To arrange for class attendance, contact CPC (cpc@unc.edu) by the Monday before the seminar. Streaming may be available and must be arranged at least one week in advance.

Chris Wiesen: Power Estimation for Hypothesis Tests Commonly Used in Social Science
2019-11-01 12:00 - 13:00 UTC | Carolina Square Room 2002, 123 W. Franklin St, Chapel Hill, NC, 27516
On Friday, November 1, Chris Wiesen will present “Power Estimation for Hypothesis Tests Commonly Used in Social Science.” as part of the Carolina Population Series 2019-2020 Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series.
Streaming information: Zoom Meeting https://zoom.us/j/354372015
Chris Wiesen earned a M.S.Ed at the University of Pennsylvania (1988) and an M.A. (1992) and a Ph.D. (1994) at UNC. Before coming to the Odum Institute, Wiesen spent one year with the National Institute of Statistical Sciences, two years visiting Duke University and three years at Research Triangle Institute (now Research Triangle International). Along with offering consulting services to graduate students and faculty in the UNC system, he teaches short courses on various software packages including SAS and SUDANN and topics on quantitative analysis. Wiesen teaches the required CPSM course: Survey Sampling.
The Carolina Population Center hosts a weekly Friday lecture on a topic that enhances our understanding of population-related changes. The 2019-2020 Interdisciplinary Research Seminars will feature talks related to aging trajectories, health behavior, the Zika virus, and the beverage tax – among other topics.
All seminars are held from 12:00 – 1:00 pm in Carolina Square Room 2002 at 123 W. Franklin St. unless otherwise indicated.
Instructors: To arrange for class attendance, contact CPC (cpc@unc.edu) by the Monday before the seminar. Streaming may be available and must be arranged at least one week in advance.

2019 Hettleman Talks: Kavita Singh Ongechi
2019-11-04 16:00 - 18:00 (America/New_York) | Carolina Club, George Watts Hill Alumni Center, 106 Stadium Drive, Chapel Hill, NC, 27514, United States
Attend these TEDX-style presentations from the four winners of the annual Phillip and Ruth Hettleman Prizes for Artistic and Scholarly Achievement, given to researchers conducting innovative work in their fields.
The late Phillip Hettleman, a member of the UNC class of 1921, and his wife Ruth established the prestigious award in 1986 in order to recognize the achievements of outstanding junior faculty.
This year’s Hettleman Prize awardees are: Uffe Bergeton, associate professor in the Asian studies department within the College of Arts & Sciences; Kavita Singh Ongechi, associate professor in the maternal and child health department within the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health and a Faculty Fellow at the Carolina Population Center; and from the School of Medicine, Li Qian, associate professor in the pathology and laboratory medicine department, and Greg Wang, associate professor in the biochemistry and biophysics department.
Singh (Ongechi) ‘s work is focused on exploring the role of social factors (education, poverty, stigma, and gender equality) in addition to the role of specific interventions and environmental factors on health outcomes. Much of her work is also focused on reaching the poorest and most vulnerable populations with interventions and evaluating national efforts to improve maternal and child health.
Find out more about this years winners here.
Click here to register for the event, however, registration is not required.

Marissa Hall: Health warning labels: Applying behavioral science experiments to inform public policy
2019-11-08 12:00 - 13:00 (America/New_York) | Carolina Square Room 2002, 123 W. Franklin St, Chapel Hill, NC, 27516
On Friday, November 8, Marissa Hall will present “Health warning labels: Applying behavioral science experiments to inform public policy” as part of the Carolina Population Series 2019-2020 Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series.
Streaming information: Zoom Meeting https://zoom.us/j/358600217
Marissa Hall uses behavioral science to inform policies to prevent cancer and other chronic diseases. Much of her research focuses on the impact of pictorial tobacco product warnings on both intended and unintended outcomes. She is also leading several experiments to examine the impact of obesity prevention policies such as sugar-sweetened beverage health warnings and taxes, with a focus on preventing childhood obesity among Latinx populations. Her research is currently supported by a K01 Career Development Award from NIH and grants from Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
The Carolina Population Center hosts a weekly Friday lecture on a topic that enhances our understanding of population-related changes. The 2019-2020 Interdisciplinary Research Seminars will feature talks related to aging trajectories, health behavior, the Zika virus, and the beverage tax – among other topics.
All seminars are held from 12:00 – 1:00 pm in Carolina Square Room 2002 at 123 W. Franklin St. unless otherwise indicated.
Instructors: To arrange for class attendance, contact CPC (cpc@unc.edu) by the Monday before the seminar. Streaming may be available and must be arranged at least one week in advance.
