The Carolina Population Center (CPC) requests infrastructure support for the innovative and interdisciplinary study of social, biological, and environmental influences on population processes and health. The large CPC research portfolio (over 250 million dollars expended in the last 5 years) has three Primary Research Areas (PRAs): Demography, Sexual and Reproductive Health, and Population Health. Each PRA addresses a set of important contemporary research questions. CPC's contributions in these PRAs are linked and strengthened by three cross-cutting signature research approaches that have historically distinguished, and continue to define, CPC research: (1) multiple level in approach and multidisciplinary in collaboration, (2) use of longitudinal research design and analysis, and (3) the evaluation of interventions in complex settings. Each of these signature approaches addresses a critical barrier in population science. The support requested in this application will facilitate research in the PRAs by strengthening infrastructure that supports CPC's signature research approaches. Frequently the work in the PRAs and the signature research approaches are employed in the design, collection, dissemination, and analysis of large, population-based, longitudinal public use datasets (e.g., representing cohorts in the U.S., Russia, China, and the Philippines) that include factors from multiple levels (from cells to society). These data overcome a critical barrier in population science - data that did not include information at the genetic and cellular level. The infrastructure for which CPC requests support contributes to four cores that collectively produce an environment conducive to innovative population science research and an institutional infrastructure that empowers CPC Fellows to tackle challenging questions. The Administrative Core provides the Center's leadership and oversees efficient and cost-effective management of Center resources while building synergies across cores and reducing administrative burden so researchers can focus on science. The Development Core supports CPC Fellows and research projects through seed grants at key junctures in the career life course and project life cycle, respectively. This core channels a largr share of resources to junior Fellows; a key mechanism is the Summer-in-Residence Program which offers structured assistance to junior Fellows as they prepare their first NIH applications. The Research Services Core enables the Fellows to address complex and important population research issues by providing access to state-of-the-art research tools and professional technical support. The Public Core is a virtual center aimed at an external global constituency of population scientists, policy makers, and the public at large. This core responds to contemporary expectations that research should be linked to real-world problems, that potential solutions should be considered, and that the methods and data used as evidence should be widely accessible. CPC has a long history of collecting and sharing important population data. The Public Core's central aim is to develop tools and best practices for data dissemination while ensuring data security.
The Carolina Population Center (CPC) requests infrastructure support for the innovative and interdisciplinary study of social, biological, and environmental influences on population processes and health. Key aims focus on interdisciplinary conceptualization, data collection for multiple levels of analysis (i.e., from genes to characteristics of the environment), appropriate analyses to reveal more accurate and useful descriptions of key population health processes, and broad access to the data and methods used in research. The research emanating from CPC will increase understanding of trends and differences in health and human development, and will inform policy development and allow evaluation of interventions.
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