UM- Global Research Training in Population Health: Research Training in Population Health in China and South Africa

For more than 10 years the Population Studies Center (PSC) at the University of Michigan has partnered with the NIH/Fogarty International Center (FIC) in a model program to foster an integrated effort to develop a research training infrastructure in population health within the international community. PSC currently has a particular emphasis on improving research training and capacity in China and South Africa. Faculty research programs include studies that examine the links between socio-economic inequality and demographic change with special attention to the rapid political and economic transitions and rural-urban differences in income and access to resources that remain large in both countries.

Directed by Professor David Lam, the FIC Research Training in Population Health in China and South Africa program provides financial and intellectual support for trainees in South Africa and China. More specifically the training program will include both long term and short term training: doctoral training at the University of Michigan, doctoral training at the collaborating foreign institutions (mainly Peking University in China and the University of Cape Town in South Africa), post-doctoral training at Michigan and at the collaborating foreign institutions, and in-country training in the form of workshops and collaborative research. One example of short-term training is the seminar in international population research, titled "Population Research in Developing Countries." This training seminar has been extremely successful, providing a forum for interaction between UM researchers and Fogarty trainees and providing a focal point for bringing together trainees from different countries. The seminar is targeted toward Fogarty international trainees, but is also open to other international students who attend the summer courses as well as U.S. students interested in international research. It provides an opportunity for foreign trainees to interact and share their research interests and experiences, to meet UM faculty, and to raise questions with faculty and with one another. The seminar also provides an important mechanism for formal instruction in the responsible conduct of research. Speakers to the seminar are UM faculty from various departments. Some past speakers for the seminar series are Professors Sioban Harlow and Rachel Snow.

The Cape Area Panel Study (CAPS) led by Professor David Lam is a longitudinal survey of young people in metropolitan Cape Town. CAPS is one of the major collaborations between UM and UCT, and plays an important role in the training program. The project has been both a major component of collaborative research and a foundation for capacity-building in survey methodology at UCT. Data collection began in 2002 with a representative sample of 4,800 young people aged 14-22 in metropolitan Cape Town. The Wave 1 instrument covered a broad range of topics, including school, work, migration, sexual activity, reproductive health, and fertility. Wave 1 also included data on all household members, as well as a sample of households that did not have residents aged 14-22. Wave 2 of CAPS was composed of two components. Wave 2A in 2003 interviewed 1/3 of the sample, with a special focus on HIV/AIDS and HIV/AIDS stigma. Wave 2B in 2004 interviewed the other 2/3 of the sample, with a special focus on youth employment and unemployment. Wave 3 took place in 2005 and was recently completed. Wave 3 continued the tracking of core outcomes such as school, work, health, and childbearing, and added detailed information on sexual partnerships, intergenerational transfers, and the impact of illness and death. Wave 4, reinterviews the full sample of young adults for the fourth time, and adds a sample of older adults (age 50+), including both older adults living with our young adult respondents as well as a sample of other older adults drawn from the original 2002 survey. Wave 4 adds major new modules on health, including the measurement of height and weight for both young adult and older adult respondents.

The other integral project of PSC's FIC training grant is lead by Professor Yu Xie. This component of the project is a product of UM President Mary Sue Coleman's 2005 visit to China. Peking University has invited UM to set up the PKU-UM Joint Institute, an independent, interdisciplinary teaching and research institution. The goal is to collaborate on UM and PKU training and faculty research. The Population Studies Center has been invited, in collaboration with the UM Center for Chinese Studies, to launch a program within the PKU-UM Joint Institute. The program that is proposed is tentatively called the "Survey Research and Quantitative Social Science Program". The program will train Chinese graduate and postgraduate students, as well as junior scholars, in survey and demographic research using statistical methods. Although the activities are based at PKU in the Joint Institute, Professor Yu Xie expects that researchers in other institutions will benefit from taking classes at PKU and collaborating with researchers trained there. The ultimate goal is to raise the level of demographic data collection and analysis in China. Housed in the interdisciplinary Joint Institute, the Survey Research and Quantitative Social Science Program is ideally situated to interact with demographic researchers located in different units at PKU.

In addition to the training program with PKU, one individual research project that encourages such collaborations is a project set to launch a new longitudinal study - the Chinese Family in Transition (CFIT) study - in the provinces of Liaoning and Hunan. The bulk of funding for this project comes from the China Population and Development Research Center (CPDRC), the research arm of China's National Family Planning Commission. Professors Yu Xie, James Lee, and Albert Park are mainly responsible for designing the study. The project plans to interview and follow up all members ages 10 and older in 3000 randomly selected households in each province. The field work for the baseline survey is scheduled to begin in August 2006. The CFIT study covers a comprehensive set of topics from health and family relationships to socioeconomic status, with particular attention to the role of the family and the community in mitigating economics shocks at a time when both the economy and the level of inequality have been growing at a rapid pace. The CFIT study is a good fit with the training program at PKU, as it provides a natural bridge between demographic training and research in China.