This course reviews the basic statistical methods of inferring the causal impact of public policy initiatives on social outcomes. Topics include randomized controlled trials, instrumental variable analysis, regression discontinuity designs, difference-in-difference “natural experiments,” and propensity score/nearest neighbor matching methods.
Survey methods and practice draw on statistics, psychology, sociology, computer science, and economics. This course introduces the student to principles of survey design and to practical issues in execution across different types of population.
This is an introductory course to the techniques used to investigate a number of important population processes which have major implications for global health and health inequalities, and public policy: population change (growth and decline), fertility change and patterns, population health and disease patterns, mortality and causes of death, population movements.
This seminar will survey the research literature in three areas of the demography of aging: (1) biodemography, (2) medical demography, and (3) social demography. In each area, the objectives are for students to obtain an understanding of key concepts, theories, methods, and research findings so that they can read, understand, and begin contributing to current research in the area.
This graduate-level course explores the theory and the method of ethnography through critiques and class discussions of exemplar ethnographies. The heart of the course is practice in learning how to do field work, write good field notes, and analyze data.
This seminar examines the impact of poverty and socioeconomic inequality, more generally, on the health of individuals and populations. Attention is given to both US and non-US populations. Topics covered include the conceptualization and measurement of poverty and socioeconomic inequality at the individual and population level; socioeconomic gradients in health; and the adequacy of public policy responses in the US and elsewhere to health inequity challenges in the age of globalization.
This seminar will cover selected topics in medical sociology such as social structure and health; social behavior and health; organization and financing of health care; and medical sociology (for example, social epidemiology, stress and coping, health and aging).
This course covers the life table and stationary population models, method of estimation of life tables, multiple-decrement and increment-decrement life tables, the stable population model, model age schedules for mortality, nuptiality, fertility, and migration, survival analysis and hazard regression models, the random walk life table model and its extensions, and applications of computer packages for demographic analysis.
At least as much as any other institution, families can distribute resources among their members across time and space, spread risk, and foster cooperation. In this seminar, we will examine some of the ways that extended families function as economic institutions, and how the institution of the family interacts with other more formal institutions to affect policy outcomes.
This course examines the causes and consequences of poverty and inequality in the United States, and reviews the major social policies used to combat poverty's ill effects. The course will begin by acquainting students with the definition and extent of poverty in the United States, situating the discussion in the larger context of American inequality.