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Aging in Sub-Saharan Africa: Recommendations for Furthering Research (2006)

Chapter: Appendix B About the Contributors

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Suggested Citation:"Appendix B About the Contributors." National Research Council. 2006. Aging in Sub-Saharan Africa: Recommendations for Furthering Research. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11708.
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Appendix B
About the Contributors

PANEL MEMBERS AND STAFF

Jane Menken is the director of the Institute of Behavioral Science and professor of sociology at the University of Colorado. Prior to her move to Colorado, she held professorships at the University of Pennsylvania and Princeton University, where she was associated with the Population Studies Center and the Office of Population Research. She has developed mathematical models of reproduction and analytic techniques and has carried out studies of the increase in sterility as women age, of fertility determinantsin Bangladesh, and of teenage pregnancy and childbearing in the United States. Her recent research has focused on adult health in developing countries and the impact of HIV/AIDS on elders and the family. She is a member of the board of directors of the African Population and Health Research Center and served on several advisory committees at the National Institutes of Health. She has served on numerous committees on the National Research Council since 1977, including the Committee on Population and Demography; the Committee on Population; and the Committee on AIDS Research Needs in the Social, Behavioral, and Statistical Sciences. She has been a Guggenheim Fellow and a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1990 and the Institute of Medicine in 1995. She has a B.A. in mathematics from the University of Pennsylvania (1960), an M.S. from the Harvard School of Public Health in biostatistics (1962), and a Ph.D. in sociology and demography from Princeton University (1975).

Suggested Citation:"Appendix B About the Contributors." National Research Council. 2006. Aging in Sub-Saharan Africa: Recommendations for Furthering Research. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11708.
×

Barney Cohen is director of the Committee on Population at the National Research Council. For the past 14 years he has worked at the National Research Council on numerous domestic and international populationrelated issues. He has an M.A. in economics from the University of Delaware and a Ph.D. in demography from the University of California at Berkeley.


Alex Ezeh is the executive director of the African Population and Health Research Center, in Nairobi, Kenya. Prior to joining the center in November 1998, he worked at Macro International Inc. for six years, where he provided technical expertise to governmental and nongovernmental institutions in several African countries in the design and conduct of demographic and health surveys. His research interests include health inequity, health consequences of third world urbanization, gender and reproductive outcomes and aging. He has a Ph.D. in demography from the University of Pennsylvania.


Edwin Kaseke is director of the School of Social Work and professor of Social Work at the University of Zimbabwe in Harare. He serves on the editorial board of several journals, including the Journal of Social Development in Africa, the Journal of Social Policy and Administration, and the International Social Work Journal. He is a former member of the executive committee and board member of the International Association of Schools of Social Work. He has consulted for many national and international organizations including International Development Research Centre-Canada, the International Labour Organization, UNICEF, GTZ, the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, and the governments of Swaziland, Namibia, and Zimbabwe. He is the author of books and articles on social security systems and other formal and informal social welfare systems in Africa. He has B.S.W. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Zimbabwe and an M.S. from the London School of Economics and Political Science.


Barthélémy Kuate-Defo is professor of demography and preventive medicine at the University of Montreal. He is a current member of the Committee on Population. His research interests include the epidemiology of aging, fertility and mortality linkages, sexuality and reproductive health, child health and nutrition, African demography, and event history and multilevel methods. Much of this work has been focused on Cameroon. He is the principal investigator of the ongoing population observatory in social epidemiology and of a large-scale quasi-experimental intervention research on reproductive health promotion and family health during the life course in Cameroon. He has a Ph.D. in population studies from the University

Suggested Citation:"Appendix B About the Contributors." National Research Council. 2006. Aging in Sub-Saharan Africa: Recommendations for Furthering Research. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11708.
×

of Wisconsin, Madison, as well as M.S. degrees in epidemiology and demography.


David Lam is a professor in the Department of Economics and a research professor in the Population Studies Center at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He previously served as director of Michigan’s Population Studies Center and director of the Michigan Center on the Demography of Aging. His research focuses on the interaction of economics and demography in developing countries. He has worked extensively in Brazil and South Africa, where his research analyzes labor markets, income inequality, and links between generations. He has been a visiting professor in the School of Economics at the University of Cape Town in 1997-1998 and 2004-2006. He is principal investigator of the Cape Area Panel Study, a longitudinal survey being conducted in collaboration with researchers at the University of Cape Town. He has an M.A. in Latin American studies from the University of Texas, Austin, and an M.A. in demography and a Ph.D. in eco-nomics from the University of California, Berkeley.


Alberto Palloni is H. Edwin Young professor of population and international studies in the Department of Sociology, Population Health Sciences, and the Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and current president of the Population Association of America. He has been a Guggenheim Fellow and a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford. His current research interests include the relation between early health status and social stratification, models for the spread of HIV/AIDS, families and households in Africa and Latin America, aging and mortality, and mathematical models. He has a B.A. from the Catholic University of Chile and a Ph.D. from the University of Washington.


Stephen Tollman is founding director of the MRC/Wits Rural Public Health and Health Transitions Research Unit (Agincourt). He heads the Health and Population Division of the School of Public Health, University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in South Africa, and chairs the university’s Population Program Executive. He is currently board chair of the INDEPTH Network of African, Asian, and Latin American demographic and health surveillance sites, and leads the network’s multisite initiative in adult health and aging. Much of his published work addresses the profound health, population, and social transitions affecting South Africa and the region, and potential public-sector responses. He holds an M.Med from the University of the Witwatersrand, an M.P.H. from the Harvard School of Public Health, and an M.A. from Oxford University.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix B About the Contributors." National Research Council. 2006. Aging in Sub-Saharan Africa: Recommendations for Furthering Research. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11708.
×

Robert J. Willis is professor in the Department of Economics, and research professor in the Survey Research Center and the Population Studies Center of the Institutes for Social Research at the University of Michigan. Previously he held appointments at the University of Chicago, the State University of New York at Stony Brook, and Stanford University. He is director of the Health and Retirement Study, a large-scale, nationally representative longitudinal survey of Americans over the age of 50. His research interests include labor economics, economic demography, economic development and the economics of aging. He has conducted research relating to economic behavior over the entire life-cycle, including theoretical and empirical research on fertility, marriage, divorce and out-of-wedlock childbearing, education and earnings, intergenerational transfers, and the determinants of poverty among elderly widows. Recently, he has begun a new area of research dealing with the relationship between probabilistic thinking and savings and wealth accumulation and other aspects of cognition. He is a past president of the Midwest Economics Association, currently president-elect of the Society of Labor Economists and received the Mindel C. Sheps Award in 2002 from the Population Association of America. He is also a current member of the Committee on Population and has served on a number of past National Research Council committees and panels. He has a B.A. in economics from Dartmouth College and an M.A. and Ph.D. in economics from the University of Washington.

OTHER CONTRIBUTORS

Gloria Chepngeno is a Ph.D. research student in the Division of Social Statistics, University of Southampton. Her current research focus is on the impact of HIV/AIDS on older people. She has an M.A. in population studies from the University of Nairobi, Kenya.


Samuel J. Clark is assistant professor in the Department of Sociology, University of Washington, and research associate at the Institute of Behavioral Science, University of Colorado at Boulder. He also is research officer, MRC/WITS Rural Public Health and Health Transitions Research Unit (Agincourt), School of Public Health, University of the Witwatersrand. He has a Ph.D. in demography from the University of Pennsylvania.


Mark Collinson is field research manager at the MRC/WITS Rural Public Health and Health Transitions Research Unit (Agincourt). He is completing an M.S. in migration and child health in rural South Africa at the University of the Witwatersrand.


Myles Connor is a senior lecturer and senior neurologist in the Division of

Suggested Citation:"Appendix B About the Contributors." National Research Council. 2006. Aging in Sub-Saharan Africa: Recommendations for Furthering Research. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11708.
×

Neurology, Department of Neurosciences, University of the Witwatersrand, and at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital. He is also coinvestigator on the Southern African Stroke Prevention Initiative.


Michel Garenne is director of research at the French Institute for Research and Development, Paris, and senior scientific advisor at the MRC/WITS Rural Public Health and Health Transitions Research Unit (Agincourt). He has a Ph.D. in demography from the University of Pennsylvania.


Victoria Hosegood is head of population studies at the Africa Center for Health and Population Studies, South Africa, and a lecturer at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Her research interests include African family demography and the impact of HIV/AIDS. She has a Ph.D. in maternal and child health.


Gillian Hundt is professor of Social Sciences in Health, and codirector of the Institute of Health, University of Warwick, United Kingdom. She has a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Warwick.


Kathleen Kahn is senior lecturer at the Health and Population Division, School of Public Health, University of the Witwatersrand, and senior researcher at the MRC/WITS Rural Public Health and Health Transitions Research Unit (Agincourt).


Abdhalah Ziraba Kasiira is a research officer at the African Population and Health Research Center, Nairobi, Kenya. He has an M.S. in clinical epidemiology and biostatistics.


Paul Kowal is a scientist in the Multi-Country Studies unit within the Department of Evidence and Information for Policy at the World Health Organization. He coordinates the WHO Study on Global Ageing and Adult Health.


Randall Kuhn is director of the Global Health Affairs Program and assistant professor at the Graduate School of International Studies, University of Denver. He has a Ph.D. in demography and sociology from the University of Pennsylvania.


Murray Leibbrandt is professor of economics at the School of Economics, University of Cape Town, and director of the Southern African Labour and Development Research Unit. He has a Ph.D. in economics from Notre Dame University.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix B About the Contributors." National Research Council. 2006. Aging in Sub-Saharan Africa: Recommendations for Furthering Research. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11708.
×

M. Giovanna Merli is associate professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. She has a Ph.D. in demography from the University of Pennsylvania.


Omar Rahman is professor of demography, and pro-vice chancellor of Independent University, Bangladesh. He has an M.D. from Northwestern University Medical School, an M.P.H in health policy, and a D.Sc. in epidemiology from the Harvard School of Public Health.


Vimal Ranchhod is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Economics, University of Michigan.


Margaret Thorogood is chair of epidemiology, and director of research degrees at the University of Warwick, United Kingdom. Prior to that, she was reader in Public Health and Preventative Medicine at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.


Ian M. Timaeus is professor of demography at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. His current research interests include adult health and mortality, and AIDS mortality. He has a Ph.D. in faculty of medicine from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.


Victoria Velkoff is the chief of the Aging Studies Branch, International Programs Center, U.S. Census Bureau. She has a Ph.D. in sociology from Princeton University. Her research interests include aging issues and adult mortality measurement.


Zewdu Woubalem is a research associate at the African Population and Health Research Center, Nairobi, Kenya. He has a Ph.D. in sociology from Brown University. His research interests include health and health-related issues in sub-Saharan Africa.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix B About the Contributors." National Research Council. 2006. Aging in Sub-Saharan Africa: Recommendations for Furthering Research. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11708.
×
Page 351
Suggested Citation:"Appendix B About the Contributors." National Research Council. 2006. Aging in Sub-Saharan Africa: Recommendations for Furthering Research. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11708.
×
Page 352
Suggested Citation:"Appendix B About the Contributors." National Research Council. 2006. Aging in Sub-Saharan Africa: Recommendations for Furthering Research. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11708.
×
Page 353
Suggested Citation:"Appendix B About the Contributors." National Research Council. 2006. Aging in Sub-Saharan Africa: Recommendations for Furthering Research. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11708.
×
Page 354
Suggested Citation:"Appendix B About the Contributors." National Research Council. 2006. Aging in Sub-Saharan Africa: Recommendations for Furthering Research. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11708.
×
Page 355
Suggested Citation:"Appendix B About the Contributors." National Research Council. 2006. Aging in Sub-Saharan Africa: Recommendations for Furthering Research. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11708.
×
Page 356
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In sub-Saharan Africa, older people make up a relatively small fraction of the total population and are supported primarily by family and other kinship networks. They have traditionally been viewed as repositories of information and wisdom, and are critical pillars of the community but as the HIV/AIDS pandemic destroys family systems, the elderly increasingly have to deal with the loss of their own support while absorbing the additional responsibilities of caring for their orphaned grandchildren.

Aging in Sub-Saharan Africa explores ways to promote U.S. research interests and to augment the sub-Saharan governments' capacity to address the many challenges posed by population aging. Five major themes are explored in the book such as the need for a basic definition of "older person," the need for national governments to invest more in basic research and the coordination of data collection across countries, and the need for improved dialogue between local researchers and policy makers.

This book makes three major recommendations: 1) the development of a research agenda 2) enhancing research opportunity and implementation and 3) the translation of research findings.

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