This course seeks to provide participants with a broad understanding of pressing global population issues. We will explore basic demographic measures, how populations change (driven by fertility, mortality/morbidity, and migration), and how demographic change influences social, political, and economic relations. We will examine population trends across different countries and understand how demographic trends vary by age, sex, and cultural identity. The course will prepare you for advanced coursework in demography, various internships related to population policy (hotlinks on Moodle - paid and unpaid- location specific and remote), and to enable you to integrate population issues into your future coursework across a variety of disciplines.
Course Goals
Participants completing the course will:
1. Master basic theories of demographic and epidemiological change
2. Gain the ability to discuss basic theories related to mortality, morbidity, migration, and fertility
3. Become able to critically assess data quality and to calculate and interpret basic calculations of
population change, growth, and composition
4. Gain introductory familiarity with single decrement tables (also known as basic risk analysis or life
tables)
5. Understand the interpretation, calculation, and uses of rates and ratios, basic standardization,
exponential growth, and basic measures of identity and inequality.
There are no prerequisites for the course.
Participants who display that they have attained these goals receive superior grades.
- Teacher: James Baugh
- Teacher: Cynthia Buckley