The candidate is an Assistant Professor in the School of Medicine and in The Wharton School, and Research Associate in the Population Studies Center at the University of Pennsylvania. He is dedicated to a career in health economics and health services research with an international focus. This grant application proposes a comprehensive program of academic training and research both in the U.S. and in South Africa to transform the candidate from being a junior faculty member to being an independent scholar in global health research. The training program will include a combination of continued formal graduate education in qualitative methodology and in population and development studies, collaborative research projects related to HIV/AIDS, participation in seminars and workshops related to HIV/AIDS, as well as cooperative endeavors with various non-governmental and governmental organizations in South Africa. The University of Pennsylvania and the premier academic institution in Africa, the University of Natal and its Center for HIV/AIDS Networking, will provide excellent environments for the candidate to accomplish these goals. The research project to be undertaken as part of the training is an economic analysis of funerals in South Africa and in Malawi, and entails the addition of new survey questions related to funerals to existing funded data collection efforts in the two countries. As traditional African funerals often cost up to a year or more of average annual income in these countries, and with many households already mired in poverty, it is important to understand the motivations and determinants of why funerals are desired in the first place, the workings of extended families in Africa as informal insurance mechanisms, the impact of AIDS and aging on these long-held traditions, and the roles social insurance and public policy can play to help mitigate any negative impact. This relatively under-researched topic will be tackled using the economics of intergenerational and inter vivos exchanges and transfers as a framework, and extensive applications of mixed qualitative and quantitative methodologies to help investigate various dimensions of funerals and their implications in southern Africa. ? ?
