California Center for Population Research

Christine Dehlendorf, UC San Francisco
2016-01-27 12:00 - 13:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | CCPR Seminar Room, 4240 Public Affairs Building, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
“Health Equity in Family Planning and Family Planning Care: Putting the Focus back on Women”
View Podcast Here
Abstract: Differences in contraceptive use and unintended pregnancy by race/ethnicity are well described. Interpretation of these differences, and how they relate to the desire to achieve health equity, is complex due to the nature of reproduction, including the personal, social and historical context in which reproductive and contraceptive decisions are made. Lack of attention to these contextual factors has the potential to interfere with the ultimate goal of optimizing women’s reproductive health and to exacerbate health inequities. This talk will review data regarding women’s reproductive outcomes and how they vary by their sociodemographic characteristics, and discuss conventional approaches in both public health efforts and clinical family planning care to thinking about and responding to these data. I will then make the case for a woman-centered approach that focuses on individual’s preferences and conceptualizations of reproductive health as the best strategy to meet women’s needs and promote health equity.
If you are interested in meeting with or joining the speaker for lunch, please send email to Seminars AT ccpr.ucla.edu
10:00 – 10:30 am: Prof. Jessica Gipson
10:30 am – 11:00 am: Mieke Eeckhaut
12:00 pm – 1:30 pm: Seminar
1:30 pm – 2:30 pm: Proseminar Lunch:Alexis Cooke, Larissa Dooley

Randall Kuhn, University of Denver
2016-01-20 12:00 - 13:30 | CCPR Seminar Room, 4240 Public Affairs Building, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
“Thirty-Five Years Later: Long-Term Impacts of the Matlab Maternal and Child Health Program on Migration and Labor Market Outcomes”
Abstract: Despite global proliferation of reproductive health and family planning programs, little is known about their long‐term effects. This talk introduces a project that provides causal evidence on the impact of the Matlab Maternal and Child Health and Family Planning Program (MCH‐FP) in Bangladesh, over thirty‐five years after it began. The Matlab Health and Socioeconomic Survey 2 (MHSS2) collected surveys and objective tests from a sample of 36,000 participants, including beneficiaries and their descendants, with followup of ~90% of migrants living outside the study area or abroad. I introduce the larger study in the context of evaluating MCH/FP program impacts on migration and labor market success. To the extent that family planning reduced competition for resources, the program may discourage migration among treated populations. However, to the extent that child health services increased human capital, treated individuals may be better positioned to migrate successfully. The results illustrate the importance of intensive migrant followup for reducing attrition bias.
If you are interested in meeting with or joining the speaker for lunch, please send email to Seminars@ccpr.ucla.edu
9:00 am – 9:30 am: Prof. Judith Seltzer
10:00 am – 10:20 am: Prof. Manisha Shah
10:30 am – 11:00 am: Prof. Siwei Cheng
11:30 am – 12:00 pm: Prof. Patrick Heuveline
12:00 pm – 1:30 pm: Seminar
1:30 pm – 2:30 pm: Proseminar Lunch: Karra Greenberg, Sung S. Park, Chad Stecher
2:30 pm – 3:00 pm: Prof. Megan Sweeney
3:30 pm – 4:00 pm: Prof. Till von Wachter

Jennifer Johnson-Hanks, UC Berkeley
2016-01-13 12:00 - 13:30 | CCPR Seminar Room, 4240 Public Affairs Building, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
“Restless Denominators”
Vimeo Podcast
Abstract: This paper explores how denominators are used, misused, and—especially—how often they are missing, and to what effects. The paper makes three arguments. First, that denominators are essential in domains far beyond the quantitative disciplines that presently attend to them. In ethnography, in practical politics, in cultural studies, in everyday decision-making, we need to think much more about the pools of possible chances out of which emerge the events we observe. Second, denominators in the social sciences are much more intently theoretical objects than their usual treatment suggests, both in the sense that populations are not naturally bounded in the ways that many statistics imply, and in the sense that people do not merely find themselves randomly in certain populations facing certain risks, but rather participate in a variety of ways in their location. Finally, I argue that a classical demographic way of thinking about the denominator—as exposure to risk—offers an elegant way of integrating contemporary theory about uncertainty, agency, and habitus into formal quantitative research.
If you are interested in meeting with or joining the speaker for lunch, please send email to Seminars AT ccpr.ucla.edu
10:30 am – 11:00 am: Prof. Jessica Gipson
12:00 pm – 1:30 pm: Seminar
1:30 pm – 2:30 pm: Proseminar Lunch: Lei Feng, Karra Greenberg, Sara Johnsen, Lena Riess, John Sullivan, Ka Yuet
2:30 pm – 3:00 pm: Prof. Patrick Heuveline

Emily Smith-Greenaway, University of Southern California
2016-01-06 12:00 - 13:30 | CCPR Seminar Room, 4240 Public Affairs Building, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
“Death and Desirability: Retrospective Reporting of Unintended Pregnancy after a Child’s Death”
Abstract: Social scientists have long debated how to best measure pregnancy intentions. The standard approach in domestic and international surveys is to use mothers’ retrospective reports of their intentions at the time of conception. Because women have already given birth at the time of this report, their children’s health may influence their responses. Some fertility scholars have argued that mothers will be more likely to recall “lower quality”—that is, unhealthy—children as unintended. What about children who are no longer alive? In contemporary sub-Saharan Africa, where one in ten African children die before their fifth birthday, this research aims to understand whether women are susceptible to recalling deceased children, and the pregnancies from which they resulted, in a more positive light. Leveraging Demographic and Health Survey data from 31 sub-Saharan African countries, I will demonstrate how children’s health and vital status is associated with women’s retrospective reports of pregnancy intentions. The results challenge the reliability of standard measures of pregnancy intentions in high mortality settings, and thus our current knowledge of the levels and consequences of unintended pregnancies in these contexts.
If you are interested in meeting with or joining the speaker for lunch, please send email to Seminars AT ccpr.ucla.edu
10:00 am – 10:30 am: Prof. Jessica Gipson
12:00 pm – 1:30 pm: Seminar
1:30 pm – 2:30 pm: Proseminar Lunch: Subasri Narasimhan, Sung Park, Emily Treleaven
2:30 pm – 3:00 pm: Prof. Patrick Heuveline

China Multigenerational Panel Datasets Workshop
2016-01-06 - 2016-01-08 | CCPR Seminar Room, 4240 Public Affairs Building, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
Co-sponsored with Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), the workshop will feature the China Multigenerational Panel Dataset-Shuangcheng (CMGPD-SC), the release of which is nearing completing, as well as the previously released China Multigenerational Panel Dataset-Liaoning (CMGPD-LN).

NBER Cohort Studies Data Users Conference
2015-12-11 09:00 - 17:00 | CCPR Seminar Room, 4240 Public Affairs Building, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
CCPR is hosting the annual NBER Cohort Studies meeting which brings together researchers from different fields interested in aging related issues or in methodologies applicable to aging and has set the seeds for synergistic relationships between economists, sociologists, demographers, psychologists, epidemiologists, and MDs. The meeting is funded in part by an NIH conference grant through NBER.

NBER Cohort Studies Meeting
2015-12-11 | CCPR Seminar Room, 4240 Public Affairs Building, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH, INC.

Cohort Studies Meeting

Dora Costa, Organizer

December 11, 2015

California Center for Population Research at UCLA
337 Charles E. Young Drive, East
Room 4240, Public Affairs Building (4th Floor)
Los Angeles, California

Program

Siwei Cheng, UCLA
2015-12-02 12:00 - 13:30 | CCPR Seminar Room, 4240 Public Affairs Building, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
“The Shifting Structure of Intragenerational Inequality”
Abstract: Traditional stratification and inequality research often treats individuals as single points of observation in the stratification system. This paper extends current scholarship on economic inequality by invoking the life course perspective to study the intragenerational pattern of wage inequality, focusing particularly on how its structure has changed across cohorts. Using over 40 years of national representative data from CPS and PSID, I found that inequality increases over the life course for all cohorts born between 1941 and 1970. Further, cross-cohort comparison reveals that the amount of intragenerational growth of inequality has increased from earlier to later cohorts, suggesting that the labor market plays a more important role in generating inequality in recent years. Microlevel decomposition analysis suggests that the relative importance of the underlying mechanisms for intragenerational inequality has also shifted across cohorts, with a growing amount of intragenerational growth of inequality attributable to education-based cumulative advantage and residual inequality.
If you are interested in meeting with or joining the speaker for lunch, please send email to Seminars@ccpr.ucla.edu
12:00 pm – 1:30 pm: Seminar
1:30 pm – 2:30 pm: Proseminar Lunch:

Rodrigo Pinto, UCLA
2015-11-18 12:00 - 13:30 | CCPR Seminar Room, 4240 Public Affairs Building, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
“Beyond LATE: Economic Choices and the Identification of Multiple Treatment Effects “
Abstract: “Monotonicity” refers to a condition in choice models with instrumental variables in which a local variation of an instrument shifts all agents toward or against a choice. This paper presents a useful framework to investigate the role of monotonicity in the identification of causal effects in multiple choice models with categorical instrumental variables. I first examine a new monotonicity condition that applies to unordered choice models with multiple treatments. Like its analogous property in the binary choice model, I show that unordered monotonicity imply and is implied by additive separability in observables and unobservables in choice equations. I show that unordered monotonicity may arise from preference properties of choice behavior. I then exemplify the use of preference properties to identify causal effects in choice models where monotonicity does not hold. I show that identification and equivalence results flow from simple properties of binary matrices.
If you are interested in meeting with or joining the speaker for lunch, please send email to Seminars@ccpr.ucla.edu
12:00 pm – 1:30 pm: Seminar
1:30 pm – 2:30 pm: Proseminar Lunch:

Reproducibility of Statistical Results
2015-11-13 12:00 - 13:30 | CCPR Seminar Room, 4240 Public Affairs Building, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
Presented By:

Mark S. Handcock
(Professor, Statistics)
Jeffrey B. Lewis
(Professor, Political Science)
Marc A. Suchard
(Professor, Biomathematics, Biostatistics and Human Genetics)

Reproducibility is one of the main principles of the scientific method. This panel of scholars will discuss issues in the importance of replication of statistical results. Increasing attention is being paid to improve reporting and hence reproducibility in the social and medical sciences. This panel will discuss some key concerns in study replication, initiatives for increasing replication, and then open the floor to discussion of how we move forward as a scientific community.

Rachel Goldberg, UC Irvine
2015-11-04 12:00 - 13:30 | CCPR Seminar Room, 4240 Public Affairs Building, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
“Immigrant Generation and Adolescent Childbearing in the United States”
Abstract: Despite recent declines, the teen birth rate in the United States is still the highest among high-income countries. Immigrant youth can be expected to increasingly shape US trends in adolescent childbearing as their share of the youth population continues to grow. About one in four US children has foreign-born parents currently, up from 6% in 1960; this share is projected to rise to one-third by 2050. In this study, I use data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) to examine how the risk of early childbearing varies by immigrant generation; to what extent generational variation reflects discrepancies in the timing of sexual onset (versus post onset factors); and what family, neighborhood, and individual-level social factors underlie generational differences. I will also describe a new data collection project called the mDiary Study of Adolescent Relationships, which pairs a year-long diary study with an ongoing birth cohort study to increase understanding of the content and quality of teen partnerships over time, and of the childhood precursors and health and developmental consequences of teen relationship behavior.
If you are interested in meeting with or joining the speaker for lunch, please send email to Seminars@ccpr.ucla.edu
12:00 pm – 1:30 pm: Seminar
1:30 pm – 2:30 pm: Proseminar Lunch:

Mirna Safi, Sciences Po, Paris
2015-10-28 12:00 - 13:30 | CCPR Seminar Room, 4240 Public Affairs Building, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
“Immigrant Spatial Desegregation Trends and Inequality Along Ethnoracial Lines in France”
*Co-Sponsored with The Program on International Migration
Abstract: This article describes patterns of ethnoracial and socioeconomic neighborhood attainment among North African, sub-Saharan African and European immigrants in France. We use the French Trajectories and Origins Survey, containing rare assimilation variables (length of stay, immigrant generation, parental length of stay, mixed ascendance, socioeconomic status). Findings highlight the weak potency of these variables in accounting for spatial trajectories compared to the predominance of ethnoracial origin. Simultaneous equations models are used to show how ethnoracial and socioeconomic desegregation overlap, delineating distinct patterns of neighborhood attainment across immigrant groups, with intense spatial disadvantage among North Africans and sub- Saharan Africans. The conclusion discusses the implications of these findings for understanding the ethnoracial dimension of socio-spatial stratification in France.
If you are interested in meeting with or joining the speaker for lunch, please send email to Seminars@ccpr.ucla.edu
12:00 pm – 1:30 pm: Seminar
1:30 pm – 2:30 pm: Proseminar Lunch

Chad Hazlett, UCLA
2015-10-21 12:00 - 13:30 | CCPR Seminar Room, 4240 Public Affairs Building, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
“Kernel balancing: a weighting approach for causal inference and sample adjustment”
Abstract: When making causal inferences from observational data under the assumption of no unobserved confounders, matching and weighting estimators are used to adjust the joint distribution of observed covariates for treated and control units to be the same. Similarly, investigators often have data from an observed sample, which they wish to adjust to make more similar to a target sample or known population. However, existing weighting and matching approaches for both problems have important limitations: matches are generally not exact, and standard weighting approaches ensure that the observed sample is similar to the target sample/population only on a finite set of pre-specified moments. I introduce kernel balancing, first in the context of causal inference and then as a solution to the general sample-adjustment problem. The method works by taking a high-dimensional expansion of the observed covariates, and choosing weights on the control group (or observed sample) such that it has equal means to the treated group (or target sample) on this high-order expansion of the covariates. By using kernels, it is possible to choose an expansion such that all continuous functions of the covariates are linear in that expansion. This proves very desirable, as the weighting then ensures that any unspecified but plausibly important continuous function of the covariates (such as a ratio of two variables) will automatically have the same means for the two groups as well. I provide empirical examples, and show that this method also implies that a particular estimator of the entire multivariate density of covariates is the same for the two samples at every observed location in the covariate space. An R package implementing the procedure is available from the author.
If you are interested in meeting with or joining the speaker for lunch, please send email to Seminars@ccpr.ucla.edu
12:00 pm – 1:30 pm: Seminar
1:30 pm – 2:30 pm: Proseminar Lunch:

So you want to be a researcher? Principles and practical data tools to help you fly transparently
2015-10-16 14:00 - 16:00 | SSC Computing Lab 2400, Public Affairs Building, Los Angeles, 90095, United States
Researchers go through fundamental steps in a data analysis project. This workshop highlights key steps in a data analyst’s workflow and encourages transparency in each of the steps. Throughout this workshop, we go through hands on exercises that integrate: a transparency engine, obtaining federal API data, producing useful intermediate data structures, and sharing analysis results. We will use [R] and Stata.
slides ipynb

Aude Hofleitner, Facebook
2015-10-15 12:00 - 13:30 | CCPR Seminar Room, 4240 Public Affairs Building, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
“Inferring and understanding travel and migration movements at a global scale”
Abstract: Despite extensive work on the dynamics and outcomes of large-scale migrations, timely and accurate estimates of population movements do not exist. While censuses, surveys, and observational data have been used to measure migration, estimates based on these data sources are constrained in their inability to detect unfolding migrations, and lack temporal and demographic detail. In this study, we present a novel approach for generating estimates of migration that can measure movements of particular demographic groups across country lines.
Specifically, we model migration as a function of long-term moves across countries using aggregated Facebook data. We demonstrate that this methodological approach can be used to produce accurate measures of past and ongoing migrations – both short-term patterns and long-term changes in residence. Several case studies confirm the validity of our approach, and highlight the tremendous potential of information obtained from online platforms to enable novel research on human migration events.
If you are interested in meeting with or joining the speaker for lunch, please send email to Seminars@ccpr.ucla.edu

William Dow, UC Berkeley
2015-10-14 12:00 - 13:30 | CCPR Seminar Room, 4240 Public Affairs Building, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
“Why does Costa Rica outperform the United States in life expectancy? A tale of two inequality gradients”
Abstract: Costa Rica is among the few low or middle income countries with high quality adult vital statistics mortality data. We link these mortality records with census data to create a Costa Rican National Longitudinal Mortality Study, and compare adult mortality patterns to those in the United States. We find that mortality in the U.S. is 18% higher than in Costa Rica among adult men and 10% higher among middle-aged women, despite the several times higher income and health expenditures of the U.S. The U.S.’s underperformance is strongly linked to its much steeper socioeconomic (SES) gradients in health. Although the highest SES quartile in the U.S. has better mortality than the highest quartile in Costa Rica, U.S. mortality in its lowest quartile is markedly worse than in Costa Rica’s lowest quartile. Further examination of cause-specific mortality and risk factors suggest that these patterns are strongly related to behaviors leading to lung cancer and heart disease.
If you are interested in meeting with or joining the speaker for lunch, please send email to Seminars AT ccpr.ucla.edu
9:00 am – 9:30 am: Prof. Hiram Beltran-Sanchez
9:30 am – 10:00 am: Prof. Adriana Lleras-Muney
10:30 am – 11:00 am: Prof. Anne Pebley
12:00 pm – 1:30 pm: Seminar
1:30 pm – 2:30 pm: Proseminar Lunch:
2:30 pm – 3:00 pm: Prof. Jessica Gipson

Welcome and Introductions
2015-10-07 12:00 - 13:30 | CCPR Seminar Room, 4240 Public Affairs Building, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, United States
Come and learn all about the California Center for Population Research!

All California Labor Economics Conference 2015
2015-09-17 - 2015-09-18 | UCLA Carnesale Commons
The All-California Labor Economics Conference (ACLEC) brings together the top labor economists in California annually to present recent research. This year’s conference will be hosted by UCLA on Thursday, September 17 and Friday, September 18. Leah Boustan (Economics) and Sarah Reber (Public Policy) are co-organizing. The local planning committee consists of Leah Boustan, Sarah Reber, Manisha Shah, Till von Wachter and Wes Yin, all CCPR affiliates.

http://aclec2015.luskin.ucla.edu/#program

Annual UCLA Research Conference on Aging
2015-07-09 08:00 - 12:00 | Ackerman Grand Ballroom, UCLA

Annual UCLA Research Conference on Aging
2015-07-09 08:00 - 12:00 | Ackerman Grand Ballroom, UCLA
“Annual UCLA Research Conference on Aging”

Annual UCLA Research Conference on Aging
2015-07-09 08:00 - 12:00 | Ackerman Grand Ballroom
Ackerman Grand Ballroom, UCLA

Bayesian Statistical Modeling Using Stan
2015-06-23 10:00 - 12:00 | 4240 Public Affairs Bldg
Daniel Lee
June 23, 2015
10:00 AM-12:00 PM

4240 Public Affairs Building

Stan is an open-source, Bayesian inference tool with interfaces in R, Python, Matlab, Julia, Stata, and the command line. Users write statistical models in a high-level statistical language. The default Bayesian inference algorithm is the no-U-turn sampler (NUTS), an auto-tuned version of Hamiltonian Monte Carlo. Stan was developed to address the speed and scalability issues of existing Bayesian inference tools. The goal of the workshop is the practical application of Stan to different models starting with ordinary linear regression and ending with more complex models such as generalized linear mixed and hierarchical models.

Longitudinal Data Analysis
2015-05-21 14:00 - 17:00
Michael Tzen
May 21, 2015
2:00pm-5:00pm
2400 Public Affairs Building

An increasing number of longitudinal datasets are being made available. The longitudinal nature of the dataset may be represented as a hierarchy of stages, say, measurements across time nested within an individual. We’ll discuss how hierarchical models account for the nested structures and how Generalized Linear Models account for different outcome-response data types. Through hands-on exercises, the workshop will give a brief overview of the motivation and intuition of longitudinal data analysis.

slides

Identifying and Accessing Datasets for Studies on Health and Aging
2015-03-13 12:00 - 13:00 | 4240 Public Affairs Bldg
Sharon Stein Merkin and Mei-Hua Huang
March 13, 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM
4240 Public Affairs Building
This presentation outlines the general approach to identifying and accessing datasets for secondary data analyses related to health and aging. Within this framework, we will outline the services provided by the UCLA Older American Independence Center’s Data Access Pilot Project (DAPP). We will provide a brief overview of several datasets, including MIDUS (Mid-Life in the US), MESA (Multi-ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis) and SWAN (Study of Women’s Health across the Nation).

How to Effectively Talk About Your Research with Diverse Audiences
2014-12-10 11:00 - 12:00 | 4240 Public Affairs Bldg
Shelley Wiseman and Prof. Jennie Brand
December 10, 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM
4240 Public Affairs Building
When you are asked to talk about your research, many of the challenges are the same no matter who your audience and what your communications medium (PowerPoint or not). How to get and keep the audience on board. How to choose what to say and what to leave out. How to identify and reinforce take-away messages. With your peers, you can assume some shared understanding and common language. Start at Point C and with your help the audience will hop on board and follow along. But what are the pitfalls? How can your presentation be more effective? Non-academic audiences pose other challenges. How to establish context and explain complicated concepts. How to tweak main messages for high-stakes audiences such as policymakers and the media.

Leaping the Hurdles and Navigating the Maze: Getting NIH Funding
2014-10-23 11:00 - 12:00 | 4240 Public Affairs Bldg
Susan Newcomer, PhD
NIH Extramural Program Staff
October 23, 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM
4240 Public Affairs Building
Co-sponsored with The Williams Institute
This is an introduction to the culture of the US National Institutes of Health. I will talk about how the NIH functions, describe the process of an award from application to review to funding and provide some suggestions on grant writing including mechanisms, tips and things to avoid. There will be time for questions.

Introduction to Stata
2014-10-03 12:00 - 13:30
Andrew Hicks (UCLA)
October 3, 12:00-1:30pm
Bunche Hall A258

The Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Survey Data Users
2014-09-12 - 2014-09-13 | UCLA
September 12-13, 2014
California Center for Population Research, UCLA Campus

Agent-Based Modeling Using AnyLogic Workshop
2014-07-28 - 2014-08-01
Prof. Nathan Osgood, University of Saskatchewan
July 28–August 1, 2014
University of California, Los Angeles

Research Using Restricted Data: Ethics and Access Issues
2014-05-19 12:00 - 13:30 | 4240 Public Affairs Bldg
Gary Gates (UCLA), Elizabeth Stephenson
May 19, 12:00 PM-1:30 PM
4240 Public Affairs Bldg.
