This application requests a five-year renewal of the predoctoral training program in demographic and population studies focused on child health and human development at the California Center for Population Research (CCPR) at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). CCPR is the primary center for research and training in demography and population at UCLA. CCPR faculty are concentrated in Sociology, Economics, and Community Health Sciences, the three primary disciplines in which population scientists are trained in the U.S., as well as in related fields, e.g., geography, public policy. Recent hiring of population scientists has increased the number of CCPR affiliates and attracted increased numbers of students interested in demographic and population studies. Accordingly, funding is requested for 6 predoctoral traineeships per year, an increase of 2 over our training grant award in 2001 and the renewal in 2006 and 2011. The training program that we seek to renew and expand plays a central role in CCPR-coordinated training at UCLA. It builds on strong graduate programs in sociology, economics, and public health; a distinguished multi-disciplinary faculty with a diverse portfolio of research than spans economic, social, and health demography and reflects the NICHD/PDB mission; and abundant resources for population research at UCLA. We seek to train the next generation of population scientists to carry out theoretically informed, methodologically sophisticated research on topics of contemporary relevance that relate to population studies. We have built an innovative curriculum in each of the three core departments, Sociology, Economics, and Community Health Sciences (CHS), and integrated interdisciplinary training in population science into their programs. For the renewal, we retain the existing features of the successful program, including a training seminar with presentations by invited speakers, trainee proseminar, mentorship, and cross-disciplinary coursework. Since the previous renewal, we added the trainee proseminar at which current and past trainees meet with invited faculty guests and discuss the speaker's research and research trajectory. We also added the requirement that all trainees complete at least one course in demography from an approved list of courses. We will also add the requirement that all trainees complete at least one advanced methods course. The program has a remarkable record of success at producing independent investigators who carry out cutting-edge research in social, economic, and public health topics that reflect the NICHD mission. Of the 29 trainees who have completed their PhD since 2005, 11 are now assistant or associate professors at major universities, 9 hold research intensive positions, 4 are postdoctoral researchers at major universities, and 4 hold appointments as lecturer (with 1 currently on the market). Thus, most trainees secure tenure-track faculty or other research intensive positions, often preceded by prestigious postdoctoral fellowships.
We seek to train the next generation of social, economic, and health professionals to carry out theoretically informed, methodologically sophisticated interdisciplinary research on demographic and population studies focused on child health and human development. We provide trainees with rigorous cross-disciplinary coursework in theory, methods, and evidence in core disciplines including economics, sociology, and public health. Trainees are mentored intensively to promote their development into independent investigators.
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