News

From interviewing developers to following people desperate for housing, Ph.D. student Warren Lowell is immersed in housing policy. In a Sanford School podcast, Lowell shares what he’s learned about the obstacles and solutions to addressing housing challenges.

Every year, scholars and students from DUPRI present research papers, prepare professional posters, and serve as panel discussants at Annual Meeting of the Population Association of America. This year's PAA Annual Meeting will take place in Washington, DC from April 10-13. Below is a list of all DUPRI scholars and students participating in PAA sessions. You can also download the list of sessions here.

Dementia currently affects some 6 million people in the U.S. and over 40 million worldwide. As the population ages, it has been projected that dementia cases will double in the next 30 years. With baby boomers reaching over 70 million people in the United States, it seems logical that many people of this generation will be affected by dementia. But what does the data actually show? In their article, “Changing Story of the Dementia Epidemic,” published in the March 12, 2025 issue of JAMA, Duke University researchers, P.J. Eric Stallard, ASA, MAAA, FCA, Svetlana V. Ukraintseva, PhD, and Murali Doraiswamy, MBBS, FRCP, point out a crucial error in prior estimates.

Duke was selected as the new editorial home of Demography, the flagship journal of the Population Association of America, for the next three years starting on July 1, 2025. DUPRI’s Hedy Lee (Sociology), M. Giovanna Merli (Public Policy and Sociology) and Marcos A. Rangel (Public Policy and Economics) will be the Lead (co)Editors. They will be joined by a multi-disciplinary team of Deputy Editors including DUPRI’s Christina Gibson-Davis, Scott Lynch, Jim Moody, Bill Pan, and Chris Wildeman, along with colleagues from many other institutions and population research centers in the US and around the world.

A new article recently published in the journal Children and Youth Services Review by DUPRI Scholars Christina Gibson-Davis, Lisa Keister, and Lisa Gennetian examines the disparate impact of net worth poverty on Black and White children's academic and behavioral outcomes.

Recent work by DUPRI Scholars within the Biodemography of Aging Unit (BARU)—including Igor Akushevich, Konstantin Arbeev, Eric Stallard, Svetlana Ukraintseva, Anatoliy Yashin, and Arseniy Yashkin—examines the complex interplay between infections, vaccinations, genetics, and cognitive decline, including Alzheimer's disease (AD) and other dementias, in older adults.

A new study published in the journal Demography by DUPRI Scholar Jen'nan Read and DUPRI graduate student Fatima Fairfax uses data from the National Health Interview Survey (2000–2018) to disaggregate non-Hispanic Whites by nativity status (U.S.- and foreign-born) and foreign-born region of birth (Europe, Former Soviet Union, and the Middle East) to examine diversity in health among adults aged 30+.

Universal home visiting programs struggle with participation among Black families. A new study published in PLOS One by DUPRI's Lisa Gennetian—along with Sanford PhD alums Jane Leer, Imari Smith, and Zoelene Hill—reveals how parenting and parental surveillance negatively affect Black parents’ interest and participation in early childhood home visiting programs, even though in focus groups Black parents describe high interest and value the benefits. Deciding not to participate in home visiting can be viewed as an adaptive response to an adversarial climate toward Black families. Labels cannot solve these systemic issues or historical injustices, but those that cue surveillance versus well-being can affect how people decide to participate in public health interventions.

DUPRI Scholars Christopher Wildeman and Hedy Lee have received funding for an R21 grant funded by NICHD to study "The Health Consequences of Childhood Maltreatment and Foster Care From Adolescence Into Mid-Life" (grant number 1R21HD118539) The two-year, almost $400,000 grant stems from a 2022 pilot project funded by the Duke Population Research Center titled "Child Maltreatment and CPS Contact."

The latest Research Collaboration Pilot Project grants between Duke University and Duke-NUS Medical School features a collaboration between DUPRI's Hanzhang Xu and Rahul Malhotra or Duke-NUS Medical School. Their project is titled "Perception and lived experience of health effects of climate change among vulnerable older adults residing in Durham and Singapore – informing health communication interventions."