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Editor:
Tonya Allen
allen@pop.psu.edu
PRInformation
Spring 2004
Note from the Director
While PRI researchers have expertise in many regions of the world, our work in sub-Saharan Africa helps inform the many problems this region faces which have important demographic causes and consequences. The challenges are well documented. Countries in the region are burdened by high HIV/AIDS prevalence
and risk, giving rise to a generation of orphans and a dramatic reduction in predicted life expectancy. Desertification and environmental degradation are significant underlying factors in food and water insecurity, and forced migration. Lack of access to medical care, including family planning resources and basic mother/baby care, contribute to high infant and maternal mortality and morbidity. PRI researchers address several of these issues in their research.
Francis Dodoo (Sociology and Demography), who joined PRI in 2003, is currently conducting research on sexual partnerships and behavior among the poorest of the poor in African cities. The multi-year project, funded by NICHD and the Office of AIDS Research, will use multiple datasets to present a portrait of the sexual activity and behavior of poor women, and will include the examination of differential behavior between long-term urban residents and recent migrants from rural areas.
In January 2005, John Casterline (Senior Associate at the Population Council) will join PRI as Professor of Sociology and Demography. He brings expertise in fertility, including proximate determinants, use and diffusion of family planning, fertility transitions, and related areas, and has an abiding interest in Ghana and other sub-Saharan African countries.
Much of David Shapiro's (Economics, Women's Studies and Demography) research has focused on sub-Saharan Africa. He recently received a Fulbright grant for travel to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where he will teach in the Demography Department at the University of Kinshasa. His recent book with co-author B. Oleko Tambashe, Kinshasa in Transition: Women's Education, Employment, and Fertility (University of Chicago Press), charts the ways in which Kinshasa's exponential population growth has affected the lives of the women who live there.
Recently Shannon Stokes (Rural Sociology and Demography), while on sabbatical leave at the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization, conducted a detailed assessment of methods to determine the impact of HIV/AIDS on rural communities and food security. The measures he developed have subsequently been employed in surveys conducted in Namibia, Zambia and Uganda. Gordon De Jong (Sociology and Demography) is modeling internal migration patterns and future migration intentions in South Africa. This is a three-year project funded by the Government of South Africa as a basis for new urbanization policies there.
Gary King (Biobehavioral Health) was among the first recipients of awards from the Fogarty International Center's International Tobacco and Health Research and Capacity Building Program. With co-investigator Stephen Matthews (Geography, Demography, and Sociology, and Geographic Information Analysis Core Director), and collaborating with three universities in Africa, he is investigating tobacco control among African youths. King and Matthews organized a workshop on Promoting GIS Applications in Tobacco Research held at the University of Cape Town June 22-24.
Several students in PRI's Graduate Program in Demography are also studying demographic problems in sub-Saharan Africa. Student poster presentations at the 2004 meetings of the Population Association of America included "Women's Empowerment and Fertility Decision-Making in Africa: Does the Presence of Inlaws Make a Difference?" (Tom O. Owuor and Bina Gubhaju) and "Sexual Behavior and Polygyny: Poverty-Driven Slum, Urban, and Rural Differences in Kenya" (Yetunde Shobo, with Dodoo). Also, Tom Owuor and William Sambisa, two of five Penn State Demography Program international graduate students selected by the Population Reference Bureau to be Population Policy Fellows for the 2004-2005 cohort, will be focusing on sub-Saharan Africa in their work.
This brief review underscores the centrality of PRI's research in sub-Saharan Africa to our overall efforts in international demography. The highly demographic nature of the many challenges facing this region means that this research promises to offer solutions to problems on the ground, while also pushing the scholarship in this area forward.
Leif I. Jensen
Director
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