WHAT’S NEW AT CPOP

New Projects

Developing a Workshop on Aging in Asia
The Committee on Population will organize a planning meeting in Asia, inviting representatives from potential Asian sponsors, as well as representatives from the Chinese and Indian Academy of Sciences and the Science Council of Japan. The meeting will be an opportunity to seek agreement among potential partners on the design and content of the hoped-for conference, develop a mutually acceptable timetable, and discuss various fund-raising options.

A joint US-Asia conference can make a contribution by taking stock of current knowledge, identifying key domains for debate about policy making, educating governments about the value of investing in data collection and developing a strong local research capacity, and identifying a research agenda that will enhance the basis for developing new policies. For the US National Academies the project would be a natural extension of two of our recent projects and reports: Preparing for an Aging World: The Case for Cross-National Research, which dealt mainly with these problems of aging in the US and Europe, and Aging in Sub-Saharan Africa: Recommendations for Furthering Research, which focused on the changing situation of older people in Africa.

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Upcoming & Recent Events

The Committee on Population recently held a one-day expert meeting on Advancing Behavioral and Social Research on the Elderly in Disasters. The meeting, sponsored by the National Institute on Aging, took place on September 14, 2009 at the Academy’s Keck Center in Washington, DC.

The purpose of this meeting was to explore the existing behavioral and social science research on the elderly (both those living in the community and those in institutions) in disasters (natural and man-made), as well as the data, tools, and methods available to pursue such lines of research in the future. NIA’s immediate interested lay in connecting this research with lines of research currently being sponsored within their behavioral and social research portfolio, including work on cognitive aging, on the psychosocial effects of stress on health and aging (including mechanisms and genetic approaches), and on the importance of social networks, families and intergenerational transfers and support for the elderly. For example, research on the situation of the elderly in catastrophes might provide insights into what is wrong with health care and living arrangements for the elderly in general. And discussion that identifies gaps in knowledge might ultimately lead to NIA sponsoring future research on a broad range of topics including such topics as the effects of terrorism and extreme climate events on the elderly or, more broadly, on the non-institutionalized elderly population in general.

Click on the links below for a listing of participants and the final report of the meeting.

Agenda
List of Participants
Final Report on the Elderly in Disasters Meeting

The Committee on Collecting, Storing, Accessing, and Protecting Social Survey Data Containing Biological Measures recently organized a workshop on issues related to informed consent, data collection, confidentiality protection, data archiving, and data access for multipurpose population surveys that collect genetic and biological specimens and measures in addition to more traditional socioeconomic-demographic, behavioral-lifestyle, and physical and mental health measures.

The workshop took place at the National Academies Keck Center on November 17-18, 2008.

Alan F. Karr, National Institute of Statistical Sciences
Data Licensing Agreements/Restricted Access

Alan Westin, Columbia University (emeritus)
Americans’ Changing Concerns About Health Privacy

Barbara A. Koenig, Mayo College of Medicine
Risks & Rewards

Bartha M Knoppers, University of Montreal
Laws and Regulations on Biobanks : Present Status and Future Directions

Ellen Wright Clayton, Vanderbilt University
Data Access v. Confidentiality: Balancing Risks and Benefits

George M. Church, Harvard Medical School
Where are we now? Where do we want to go?

Holly Taylor, Johns Hopkins University
Informed Consent: Best Practices

Jennifer Harris, The Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Oslo; NIA Consultant
Overview of Biobanks and Data Harmonization

John Abowd, Cornell University
Assessing the Utility of Statistical Methods for Limiting Disclosure Risk: Value of Synthetic Data Sets

Jerome P. Reiter, Duke University
Quantifying Disclosure Risks

Karen J. Maschke, Hastings Center
Research with Biological Data Collected in Social Surveys: The Role of IRBs in Informed Consent

Kathi Shea, SeraCare, Inc
SWAN: Current Practices in Receipt and Storage of BioSpecimens

Kathie Mullan Harris, University of North Carolina
Research Benefits of Linking Biological Data with Social Survey Data

Leslie Shaw, University of Pennsylvania
PENN Biomarker Core of the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative

Mary Fran Sowers, University of Michigan
Workshop on Collecting, Storing, Accessing, and Protecting Data Containing Biological Measures

Murat Kantarcioglu, University of Texas
A Privacy Preserving Framework for Integrating, Storing and Querying Biological Data

Paul S. Appelbaum, Columbia University
Informed Consent: Recent Developments in Legal and Ethical Requirements for Data Collection and Use

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Recent Releases

The Committee to Evaluate the Research Plan of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, chaired by Dr. John C. Weicher, released the report

Rebuilding the Research Capacity at HUD

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