Thursday, March 11, 2010

Helena Choi Talks About PopPov

Helena Choi, Population Program Officer at the Hewlett Foundation, answers questions about the relationship between population and poverty, the PopPov Research Network, and how research can improve policy.  
Thursday, March 04, 2010

CPP Offers Postdoctoral Fellowship

The Cornell Population Program (CPP) invites applicants for the newly funded Frank H.T. Rhodes Post-doctoral Fellowships. The start date for the position will be August 16, 2010, and it will be funded for 2 years, subject to a satisfactory first year evaluation. Selection will be based on scholarly potential, ability to work in multi-disciplinary settings, and the support of a faculty mentor and CPP affiliate at Cornell who will work closely with the post-doctoral associate. Preference will be given to fellows with research interests in areas broadly related to the CPP’s three main foci: families & children, health behaviors & disparities, or poverty/inequality. Especially encouraged are applications from candidates whose research has significance for those countries on which the fellowship’s funder focuses—the United States, the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, Vietnam, South Africa, and Bermuda.
 
The Frank H. T. Rhodes Fellowships stand as a testament to the profound difference Frank Rhodes has made at Cornell by furthering scholarship and research in areas related to poverty alleviation, support for the elderly and disadvantaged children and youth, public health, and human rights. The postdoctoral program is designed to provide an intense apprenticeship through collaborations with faculty and to assist new scholars in launching their own programs of research. Postdoctoral associates devote most of their time to independent research, but are expected to be involved in CPP institution building activities, as well. See http://cpp.cornell.edu/ for more information about the Cornell Population Program.
 
The postdoctoral associate will have access to the full range of university resources and receive an annual salary of $50,000 plus benefits and a modest research/travel account.  Applicants must have a Ph.D. in demography, economics, sociology, or another related social science discipline by August 16, 2010. Screening of applications begins February 10, 2010, and will continue until the position is filled.
 
Applications must include: (a) letter of application, (b) curriculum vita, (c) a 2-3 page statement proposing both an individual research project and how the candidate will engage with a CPP faculty affiliate’s on-going research, (d) examples of written work, (e) a letter from a CPP faculty affiliate agreeing to mentor the candidate, and (d) three letters of recommendation. These materials must be submitted online at www.ohr.cornell.edu/jobs.  Once you reach this web site, please click on Faculty and Non-Faculty Instruction, Research & Extension Positions and search by Job Number 12108.  For questions, please contact Erin Oates at eo73@cornell.edu.
 
Cornell University is an equal opportunity, affirmative action educator and employer. 
Wednesday, February 24, 2010

3IE Awards Go to Two PopPov Researchers

Rebecca Thornton, Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Michigan, and Scott McNiven, a Hewlett Population, Reproductive Health and Economic Development Fellow and PhD Candidate at the University of California at Davis, recently won 3IE awards.

3IE—the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation—was initiated by the Center for Global Development. In a report by CGD's Evaluation Gap Working Group, “When will we ever learn?”, CGD recommended the establishment of an entity to channel funds to high-quality, independent impact evaluations around an agenda of key questions that confront policymakers. 3IE was developed out of this recommendation.

Mr. McNiven will conduct research with Daniel O. Gilligan, a senior research fellow at IFPRI and lead principal investigator on this project. Mr. McNiven and Dr. Gilligan will collaborate with the International Potato Center to study the diffusion and adoption dynamics of a biofortified crop in Uganda. Biofortification programs introduce staple food crops bred to have more micronutrients to poor, rural populations in developing countries in order to reduce micronutrient deficiencies. HarvestPlus has introduced a beta-carotene-biofortified crop, the orange-fleshed sweet potato (OFSP), to Uganda in order to reduce vitamin A deficiency. The intervention’s treatment includes providing farmers with sweet potato vine cuttings to cultivate, information about growing OFSP, and the health benefits of vitamin A.

They will survey 1,116 households that received the treatment, 709 untreated farm households in the same villages and 432 farm households in nearby communities. The intervention’s roll-out design allows the researchers to isolate the impacts of three features of the program—OFSP vine distribution, training about the technology, and spillovers like social learning—on longer-run outcomes for both farmer group members and their neighboring nonmembers. Outcomes include child vitamin A levels, agricultural profits, OFSP adoption rates, and child consumption of OFSP.

With her award from 3IE, Dr. Thornton will collaborate with Banja La Mstogolo (BLM), a reproductive health NGO in Malawi, and the University of Malawi College of Medicine to conduct research on scaling up male circumcision service provision. Recent findings indicate that male circumcision significantly and substantially lowers the likelihood of a man contracting HIV by up to 60 percent. This has led to many discussions about how circumcision might be a viable prevention strategy for reducing the spread of HIV.

However, the roll-out and scaling up of services in Africa has been slow. There have been limited rigorous studies on what could be the most effective way of scaling-up male circumcisions in Africa. This study will separately measure the effects of subsidies and information/counseling on the increase in demand for male circumcisions among adult men and infants in Malawi.

In partnership with BLM, the evaluation will involve surveys among 3,000 adult men living within clinic catchment areas and 1,500 women attending antenatal and neonatal clinics. At the end of the survey, respondents will receive vouchers of varying prices for a male circumcision at BLM clinics. This will allow for measuring the elasticity of demand for circumcision among both adult men and women (for their infant sons). In addition to the voucher randomization, the evaluation will randomly allocate information about HIV and circumcision among respondents to measure the relative effect of information on the willingness to pay. Results from the evaluation will guide policy makers and health providers about cost-effective ways of increasing male circumcisions, and consequently reducing HIV infections.
 
Wednesday, February 03, 2010

Rachel Nugent Discusses PopPov

Rachel Nugent, Deputy Director for Global Health at the Center for Global Development and Director of the PopPov Research Network, discusses PopPov and the recent conference in Cape Town on CGD’s Global Prosperity Wonkcast. Click here to listen. 
Thursday, January 07, 2010

COMING SOON! Electronic Working Paper Series

Through the sponsorship of the Hewlett Foundation and the administrative support of the International Health Economics Association, an Electronic Working Paper series is now being created to provide broader intellectual discourse on the topic of population, reproductive health, and economic development. The E-WP can become a useful means of disseminating finished research or work in progress to colleagues within the network and throughout the SSRN community. A board of editors is being established, with Dr. Shareen Joshi as the executive editor. The E-WP series will soon be soliciting contributions of papers from the PopPov community and beyond. We welcome suggestions about how it can be useful to you. 
Wednesday, August 05, 2009

Fertility and Empowerment Postdoctoral Fellowship at ICRW

ICRW is offering a post-doctoral fellowship for a social scientist with gender and population expertise at its Washington, D.C. office. Visit their website for more information. 
Monday, July 06, 2009

A series of lectures on The Population Question in Development-the need for a debate in the Netherlands is being co-organized by The World Population Foundation (WPF) and the Society of International Development (SID, Netherlands Chapter). Visit the website to watch the lectures and learn more.