Penn State Population Research Institute - Services

Research

he GIA core is designed to aid PRI research in each of the following areas:

Current Projects
Selected Past Projects
Geospatial Science at other APC Centers

Current Projects

Current projects using PRI's GIA Core resources include:

Stephen A. Matthews (PI) R25 GIS and Population Science Training Grant from Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). Awarded August 2004. Co-PIs: Michael Goodchild and Don Janelle at the Center for Spatially Integrated Social Science (CSISS) UC Santa Barbara. See http://csiss.ncgia.ucsb.edu/GISPopSci/

Linda M. Burton (PI), Stephen A. Matthews (co-PI) and Debra Skinner (co-PI at UNC-Chapel Hill). National Science Foundation Awarded August 2004.

Stephen A. Matthews (PI on PSU collaboration with Dr. Sean Reardon, Stanford University) Measuring Spatial Segregation. Co-investigators include Glenn Firebaugh and Barrett Lee (Penn State) and David O'Sullivan (Auckland). National Science Foundation Awarded July 2005.

Jim W. Wood, Patricia L. Johnson, Timothy Murtha, and Stephen A. Matthews. "Spatiotemporal Dimensions of Population Change in the Northern Orkney Islands, c. 1735-2000. Awarded by the National Science Foundation, Human Social Dynamics Agents of Change, August 2005.

Family Life Project
The study, funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, will follow 1,400 children from selected rural counties in North Carolina and in Pennsylvania from infancy through the first three years of the children's lives in order to gauge their biological, emotional and social development. The research conducted at Penn State will include approximately 600 children from three Pennsylvania counties. more...
Project website

Consortium for Atlantic Regional Assessment (CARA)
CARA is a collaboration among four universities, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and public and private stakeholders in the Mid- and Upper-Atlantic region. CARA provides scientific information and tools that government agencies, communities, citizens, businesses and other stakeholders can use to assess and adapt to the potential impacts of changes in land use and climate where they live, work, and play. more...
Project website

Leveraging Nepal DHS with GIS
The goal of this project is to demonstrate the potentials of GIS-related technologies based on the use of Nepal-DHS 2001 data. Specifically, we are interested in using cluster geocodes to facilitate the creation of new derived variables and contextual databases as well as make explicit use of geospatial information in developing statistical models focusing on applications looking at women and child health outcomes. In this project we will focus on the application of geospatial information technologies in three areas: (a) dataset construction, (b) exploratory spatial data analysis and (c) confirmatory spatial modeling. Substantively we will focus on women's reproductive behavior, primarily exploring the relations between individual level (micro) and contextual (macro) factors. During the project we will use data visualization and spatial modeling techniques as well as hierarchical linear (or multi-level) modeling techniques.
See http://www.measuredhs.com/pubs/pub_details.cfm?ID=449&srchTp=advanced

Critical Mass Homeless Populations
Lee's research, supported by the Brookings Institution, identifies metropolitan neighborhoods with emergency and transitional shelters that house substantial concentrations of homeless people. Census data and GIS methodology are used to examine locational and other characteristics of these "critical mass" neighborhoods in 2000 and to document any changes in them since 1990.
See recent article by Lee, B.A. and T. Price-Spratlen (2004). "The Geography of Homelessness in American Communities: Concentration or Dispersion?." City & Community 3(1):3-27.

The Place of Religion in the American Metropolis (Zelinsky)
An initial phase of the study involves extensive fieldwork along with the incorporation of Census and other documentary data and information to be gained from a carefully designed telephone survey of a sample of congregations. We are conducting a visual inventory and mapping of all (ca. 5,100) churches (structures used by all faiths and denominations) and church-related facilities in Cook County, Illinois, i.e., Chicago and its immediate periphery.
The analytical phase of the project entails statistical manipulation of the data set using a variety of standard methods, including GIS (Geographic Information Systems) and mapping church and other data in ways designed to display not just simple location but the complex interrelationships among congregations, the physical traits of their facilities, and their neighborhoods, and change during the 1990-2000 period. Consultation with knowledgeable key informants in church and other organizations is an indispensable part of the research effort. Drawing upon the evidence extracted from statistical and map analyses and qualitative information, we should begin to be able to answer many questions, some as yet unanticipated, concerning the role of location of congregations and their dealings with neighborhoods and the metropolis at large, the changing character and efficacy of religious endeavor, and how the churchscape figures in the larger scheme of things.

Three-City Welfare Study
Members of the GIA Core have participated in meetings in Boston, San Antonio and State College throughout 1999-2000 on the NICHD funded Tri-City Welfare Reform Project [lead PI's on this multi-site grant are William Julius Wilson (Harvard), Andrew Cherlin (Johns Hopkins), Lindsay Chase Landale (Northwestern) and Linda Burton (Penn State)]. The GIA Core continues to be actively involved in this research project, working closely with Linda Burton. The work to date has consisted of the generation of contextual level variables for possible neighborhoods in the three cities (Boston, Chicago and San Antonio), the creation of neighborhood boundary maps and contributions to discussion about the neighborhood ethnography components of the research project. Most recently, the GIA Core have embedded family and neighborhood ethnographic field notes within a GIS project. A presentation of this work was made by Linda Burton and Stephen Matthews at the NIH conference, Towards Higher Levels of Analysis: Progress and Promise in Research on Social and Cultural Dimensions of Health.
more...
See Matthews, S.A. , J. Detwiler and L.M. Burton (Forthcoming). Geoethnography: coupling geographic information analysis techniques with ethnographic methods in urban research. Cartographica.
and
Skinner, D. , S.A. Matthews and L.M. Burton (2005). "Combining ethnography and GIS technology to examine constructions of developmental opportunities in contexts of poverty and disability." In Weisner, T.S. (Ed.) , Discovering Successful Pathways in Children's Development: Mixed Methods in the Study of Childhood and Family Life. Chicago, IL: MacArthur Foundation: University of Chicago Press.

Population and Environment
Stephen Matthews collaborates with Dr. William Axinn (University of Michigan) on the NICHD supported Population and Environment grant for Western Chitwan, Nepal. In November 1999 Stephen returned to Nepal to train colleagues in Chitwan in preparation for neighborhood mapping and flora data collection activities scheduled for early 2000. Early this year Bill Axinn (PI), Jennifer Barber, Lisa Pearce and consultants at Michigan and Penn State submitted a grant for continued funding of this research.
more...

Geo-Referenced Digital Libraries
Dr. Stephen A. Matthews, senior research associate, associate professor of demography and sociology (adjunct geography), and director of the GIA Core, is part of an international team of geographers (affiliated with the Worldwide Universities Network) that will focus on developing geo-referenced digital libraries in support of innovative approaches to teaching and learning in Geography. The project, funded by the Joint Information Systems (JISC-UK) and National Science Foundation (NSF-USA), includes collaborators at the University of Leeds, the University of Southampton, and the University of California, Santa Barbara.
DIALOG-PLUS As part of the DIALOG-PLUS project Stephen Matthews is developing materials for a teaching module focusing on race/ethnic segregation in selected US cities based on 1970-2000 census data.

Choosing Schools, Choosing Neighborhoods: Understanding the 'New Segregation'
This project will characterize and investigate the patterns and trends of the 'new segregation' with detailed analyses of census data and public and private school enrollment data. Racial and socioeconomic segregation among schools and neighborhoods remains a stubborn fact of U.S. society, although the nature of segregation has changed as the U.S. has become an increasingly multi-racial and metropolitan society. This 'new segregation' is characterized by several key features: 1) it reflects the increasingly multi-racial/ethnic population of the U.S.; 2) it is largely metropolitan in scope, rather than contained primarily in large urban school districts; 3) it is largely due to residential segregation between urban and suburban areas and among suburban school districts; 4) it is complicated by the increases in socioeconomic diversity within racial/ethnic groups; and 5) private school enrollment and segregation patterns compound the effects of existing residential segregation on school segregation.

Wilkes-Barre PATHS study
The Wilkes-Barre PATHS study examines how contextual heterogeneity (in the form of racial or ethnic, socioeconomic, gender, or immigrant backgrounds) influences specific prevention and intervention programs. The project's design involves examining the effectiveness of implementing PATHS, a well-documented evidence-based prevention program, developed to avert behavioral and emotional problems that have been associated with violence and delinquency among elementary school students. Using tract level Census 2000 data, GIA Core personnel geocoded the home addresses of 268 second grade students in the Wilkes-Barre school district in northeast Pennsylvania, incorporating relevant background information such as gender and ethnicity for each record. This information has been used to create a Classroom Heterogeneity Indicator score, which will be evaluated to indicate how various types and degrees of heterogeneity influence PATHS adoption.

Gary King: The PSU Tobacco Capacity Building Research (PSU-TCBR) project
A proposed activity for Year 1 (2003) of The Pennsylvania State University Tobacco Capacity Building Research (PSU-TCBR) project includes the possibility of developing a GIS training component to assist South African partners in their use of GIS software in planning and conducting tobacco related research. The GIA Core are currently exploring data needs and availability focusing on core "framework" data on which to build a GIS database for Cape Town suitable for use in training activities. Learning how to handle, visualize and interpret geospatial data will be less complicated if the trainees already have some familiarity with the geography, demographics and urban infrastructure of Cape Town. If the training component becomes a reality, the GIA Core will provide training in mapping and data visualization, address-matching and geocoding, how to derive new measures based on geographic/geometric properties, how to construct contextual data sets, and possibly provide a primer on spatial analytical methods such as point pattern analysis and spatial regression.
See http://www.pop.psu.edu/events/gis-tobacco.htm

Recidivism and Neighborhood Effects:
Examining Parolees in Georgia and their Communities Frances F. Burden and Dr. Barry Ruback Sociologists and Criminal Justice experts have long tried to understand the "push" and "pull" factors individuals must confront in their decision whether or not to recidivate and commit criminal acts that may jeopardize their newly won freedom. The advent of GIS-based technologies has made it easier for researchers to address the possible factors that individuals are faced with on a neighborhood level. This study investigates the effect of neighborhood characteristics on a parolee's likelihood of recidivism, in the attempt to understand whether there are some "at risk" neighborhoods that increase a parolee's likelihood of rearrest. The key question is whether parolees who are released into more socially disorganized neighborhoods (e.g., high levels of residential mobility, large percentages of poverty, and a large number of criminal "hotspots" such as bars) are more likely to recidivate than parolees who are released into more socially organized neighborhoods. Using ARCGIS and HLM, this study begins to understand some of the contextual variables that increase recidivism.

Crime Studies
Stephen A. Matthews, Karen Hayslett-McCall, R. Barry Ruback, and Maureen Outlaw are currently working on a series of papers examining the spatial trends of index crimes, victimization, and fear of crime in Seattle, Washington. To study these patterns, the research team is using a wide variety of data sources, including the 1990 Seattle Victimization Study survey, U.S. Census data, Uniform Crime Reports data, King County Metro data, Thomas Brothers Maps information, Seattle phone book information, and Common Core Data from the National Center of Educational Statistics. In terms of analytic techniques, the Seattle research team is integrating GIS, spatial regression analysis (Spacestat), and HLM. The goal of the research is to demonstrate through the retrofitting of urban contextual data sets that GIS and spatial analysis can enhance our understanding of crime, victimization, and fear of crime.
more...

For a more complete list of current projects see http://www.pop.psu.edu/gia-core/funded.htm

Selected Past Projects

Crime Studies
Karen L. Hayslett-McCall and Stephen A. Matthews are integrating GIS, spatial statistics and HLM to investigate the degree to which Part I crime patterns in neighborhoods are similar across multiple cities. The selected cities of study vary in size, ecological patterns (i.e., land-use and physical structures), and social patterns (i.e., census). A paper on this topic has been accepted for presentation at the Crime Mapping Research Conference in Dallas, TX (December 1-4, 2001).

The GIA Core has provided services and participated in presentations and workshops for the recently created Center for Research on Crime and Justice at The Pennsylvania State University.

Stephen Matthews and Jim Cameron (now at Claritas) are investigating the spatial trends in index crimes within Appalachia. Their work focuses on rural crime and the coupling of the application of spatial statistics and GIS.

Maternal and Child Health
Nancy Landale (Sociology, Penn State) and Sal Oropesa (Sociology, Penn State) are PI's on a NICHD funded study of Puerto Rican infant and maternal health. The GIA Core is building contextual datasets at both the county and tract level that could be used as part of this study.

Education
David Post (Education), David Abler (Agricultural Economics) and Leif Jensen (Rural Sociology) are PI's on the Ford and Spencer Foundation carrying out research on issues pertaining to educational attainment in these three countries. The GIA Core have tried to find, evaluate and prepare boundary files for use in Arcview for these three countries. Chris Calienes, has worked on these tasks with all three faculty members and some of their students. He has also generated maps when requested for David Post which have been used in poster presentation and conference talks.

Tremin Trust
This project is coordinated by Phyllis Mansfield and Jim Wood (Anthropology). To date we have generated maps of the locations of the respondents - which have been used in poster and conference presentations, and even on the projects webpages - and also we have explored the possibility of building a contextual data set for the study.
more...

Marriage and Divorce studies
Alan Booth, Paul Amato and former colleagues at Nebraska have been studying/tracking a national sample of 2000 households since 1980. The GIA Core has begun to talk to the faculty about address matching and building contextual level data sets containing variables of interest for selected waves of data collection. Our work will involve working backwards in time to recreate data for 1980, 1992, 1997, and 2000.
more...

PopMap
Stephen Matthews completed a "Workbook" (.pdf document) for the United Nations, Statistics Division to accompany the packages PopMap and MapScan. The workbook was titled Working with PopMap: Integration of Population, Reproductive Health and Geographic Databases (200 pages). A revision of the manuals associated with the software was completed July 1999.

Appalachian Regional Commission
The GIA contributed to maps and data complied for a report to the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) on "Demographic Diversity and Economic Change in Appalachia" by Diane K. McLaughlin, Daniel L. Lichter and Stephen A. Matthews (with Glynis Daniels and James Cameron). Report was completed in July 1999.
The report is available the ARC's Online Resource Center website found at http://www.arc.gov/index.do?nodeId=57#demo (under Demographics) or http://www.arc.gov/index.do?nodeId=1086
FYI, A direct link to a 1.8 MB file is available at http://www.arc.gov/images/reports/
demographic/demographics.pdf

Pennsylvania Family Sampling
Pamela Cole (Psychology, Penn State) and Clancy Blair (HDFS, Penn State) are working on a proposal for a study that aims to survey families with young children in a certain income bracket in State College, Altoona, and Williamsport. To this point the GIA Core has assisted them in determining how far from the cities the sampling will have to occur, as well as which Census tracts are likely the best places to find these families.
more...

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