Courses

The recommended training for the Duke Population Sciences includes:

2 Core Methods courses
1 Elective course

Students interested in the Population Sciences at Duke must be registered in the Ph.D. program of one of our constituent departments. Whether you are registered in the Ph.D. program in Biology, Evolutionary Anthropology, Economics, Public Policy, Psychology or Sociology, all students with an interest in the population sciences are encouraged to register for our courses and attend the DuPRI weekly seminar series. Our program is designed to complement the training in your home department and to broaden YOU as a scholar. We give you a unique opportunity to learn from the faculty and fellow graduate students outside of your home department.

While taught within departments, all of our courses are designed to appeal to students broadly, and generally do not require advanced disciplinary training. Regardless your field of interest, DuPRI offers a unified set of course work which will allow you to develop strong skills in the population sciences. The program is flexible enough to allow you to tailor a set of methodological courses and substantive courses that fit your specific research needs. DuPRI offers fellowships for graduate and post-doctoral training in Aging and in the Population Sciences in general.

(See complete course listing and links below)

Core Methods Courses
PUBPOL 532S - 01 Introductory Demographic Measures and Concepts; M. Giovanna Merli This is an introductory course to the techniques used to investigate a number of important population processes which have major implications for global health and health inequalities, and public policy: population change (growth and decline), fertility change and patterns, population health and disease patterns, mortality and causes of death, population movements.	FALL 2012
PUBPOL 590 - 07 Survey Methods; Elizabeth Frankenberg Survey methods and practice draw on statistics, psychology, sociology, computer science, and economics. This course introduces the student to principles of survey design and to practical issues in execution across different types of population.	SPRING 2013
PUBPOL 604 - 01 Policy Evaluation with Data; Elizabeth Ananat This course reviews the basic statistical methods of inferring the causal impact of public policy initiatives on social outcomes. Topics include randomized controlled trials, instrumental variable analysis, regression discontinuity designs, difference-in-difference “natural experiments,” and propensity score/nearest neighbor matching methods.	FALL 2012
SOCIOL 726S - 01 Advanced Methods of Demographic Analysis; Kenneth Land This course covers the life table and stationary population models, method of estimation of life tables, multiple-decrement and increment-decrement life tables, the stable population model, model age schedules for mortality, nuptiality, fertility, and migration, survival analysis and hazard regression models, the random walk life table model and its extensions, and applications of computer packages for demographic analysis.	TBA

Elective Courses
ECON 881 - 03, 04 Empirical Development; Duncan Thomas, Erica Field This one semester course discusses emerging issues in the micro-economics of population and development. The course draws on theoretical models to develop scientific hypotheses about important questions in the field and proceeds to discuss how one might subject those hypotheses to empirical testing.	FALL 2012
ECON 901 - 01 International Population Health and Development; Erica Field, Elizabeth Frankenberg, Amar Hamoudi and Duncan Thomas This workshop covers emerging issues in international population health and development including individual and family behavior in developing countries, poverty, inequality, human and financial capital, and health of populations across the globe.	FALL 2012
GLHLTH 637S-01 Population-Environment Dynamics and Health; William Pan This course examines population, health and environment (PHE) dynamics with a focus on interactions occurring in countries classified as developing or transition economies.  Students will gain knowledge of the theoretical and empirical approaches governing PHE dynamics from multiple disciplinary perspectives, including those from geography, public health / epidemiology, demography, and economics.	SPRING 2013
PUBPOL 527S - 01 Poverty, Inequality, and Public Policy in The U.S.; Christina Gibson-Davis This course examines the causes and consequences of poverty and inequality in the United States, and reviews the major social policies used to combat poverty's ill effects. The course will begin by acquainting students with the definition and extent of poverty in the United States, situating the discussion in the larger context of American inequality.	TBA
PUBPOL 608S - 01 Economics of the Family; Amar Hamoudi At least as much as any other institution, families can distribute resources among their members across time and space, spread risk, and foster cooperation. In this seminar, we will examine some of the ways that extended families function as economic institutions, and how the institution of the family interacts with other more formal institutions to affect policy outcomes.	SPRING 2013
PUBPOL 633 - 01 Population, Health and Policy; M. Giovanna Merli This course covers the substantive findings and policies/policy debates around key selected topics in population and health today in industrialized and developing societies. Demographic models are used to understand, frame, define and evaluate these topics.	TBA
PUBPOL 644S - 01 Poverty, Inequality, and Health; Sherman James This seminar examines the impact of poverty and socioeconomic inequality, more generally, on the health of individuals and populations. Attention is given to both US and non-US populations. Topics covered include the conceptualization and measurement of poverty and socioeconomic inequality at the individual and population level; socioeconomic gradients in health; and the adequacy of public policy responses in the US and elsewhere to health inequity challenges in the age of globalization.	TBA
SOCIOL 641S - 01 Proseminar in Medical Sociology (Health in Life Course Perspective); Linda George This seminar will cover selected topics in medical sociology such as social structure and health; social behavior and health; organization and financing of health care; and medical sociology (for example, social epidemiology, stress and coping, health and aging).	SPRING 2013
SOCIOL 690S - 01 Ethnographic Field Methods; Linda Burton This graduate-level course explores the theory and the method of ethnography through critiques and class discussions of exemplar ethnographies. The heart of the course is practice in learning how to do field work, write good field notes, and analyze data.	TBA
SOCIOL 750S - 01 Proseminar in Population Studies (Demography of Aging); Kenneth Land, Eric Stallard This seminar will survey the research literature in three areas of the demography of aging: (1)biodemography, (2)medical demography, and (3)social demography. In each area, the objectives are for students to obtain an understanding of key concepts, theories, methods, and research findings so that they can read, understand, and begin contributing to current research in the area.	SPRING 2013
SOCIOL 750S - 01 Proseminar in Population Studies (Interdisciplinary Approaches to Human Attitudes and Behavior); Matthew Bradshaw In an attempt to understand human attitudes and behaviors, and ultimately population processes, this course takes an interdisciplinary approach. The sociology and biology departments are offering an interdisciplinary seminar on mental health. Course readings are drawn from diverse disciplines including sociology, psychology, biology, political science, anthropology, economics, and medicine, among others.	SPRING 2013
SOCIOL 770S - 01 Proseminar in Social Psychology (Social Networks); James Moody This seminar focuses on theoretical and substantive themes within social network analysis. The theoretical heart of this approach to social science is that actors are interdependent, and that social structure emerges from regularities in this interdependence. In this seminar, we will couple the substantive and theoretical development of social network analysis with methodological tools to implement network research.	TBA