This is quite the all-star lineup of demographers with expertise in fertility. Period fertility (or mortality) rates are not destiny. If we are really that concerned about future population growth, perhaps we should just make it easier for people to have families? It's in our power

Hi friends! Some bittersweet news to share: I’m thrilled to be coming back to California to join UCLA as an Associate Professor in the Dept of Epidemiology! 🌴🔵🟡 Immensely grateful to my Hopkins colleagues & students who made the past 6 years so rewarding. ❤️

We cannot rely on private philanthropy to address structural and systemic issues over the long run because the changing whims of private donors means investments are piecemeal and seldom sustained for long enough to make a difference. wapo.st/3ZRonor

Does this mean I get my NIH grant back?? The one that was terminated bc I said incarceration was a form of “structural inequality”?

Our latest paper is now in print, showing ⬆️ prevalence of adverse perinatal health outcomes in the wake of pandemic. This suggests potential lasting impacts on future generations. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.... @societyforepi.bsky.social @dkarasek.bsky.social @alisongemmill.bsky.social 1/

Worries over low birth rates are nothing new. Everything @lesja.bsky.social, @alisongemmill.bsky.social, & I wrote in this op-ed *SIX* years ago is still true. These worries have coalesced into a well-funded & influential pronatalist movement w/in an admin that is deeply anti-family.

🧵It’s #BlackMaternalHealthWeek -a time to center Black moms & a need for action. I’m reflecting on what this means in a year when our #NIH grant “Looking Back to Look Forward: Social Environment Across the Lifecourse, Epigenetics, & Birth Outcomes in Black Families” was terminated. #MedSky #EpiSky

My favorite is placing pregnancy, infertility, maternal health, and child health (I.e., NICHD) in the Institute of Disability Research. What are we doing here??

Packed room for our session on #perinatal-demography at #paa2025 with Payal Hathi, @alisongemmill.bsky.social, Tim Bruckner, Haley Comfort @ihmeuw.bsky.social, and @jnobles.bsky.social as inspiring discussant. You can download their submissions here: submissions.mirasmart.com/PAA2025/Itin...

Hi from @popassocamerica.bsky.social meeting! These past few weeks have been incredibly tough, but I am so inspired by my colleagues and our community.

NEW: Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS) is the decades old data collection program focusing on the health of infants and mothers at CDC. Critical source of data for all aspects of health thru process of pregnancy, childbirth, postpartum etc. In the first weeks of the admin I ...

Timeline cleanse Go see my brother’s old school animation movie that was released this weekend—he was a co-writer and head of story. Proud of him!

While working on these studies, this was the finding that I couldn't stop thinking about. Reproductive justice folks warned us about this.

If you are one of the #CDC #HHS #FDA #NIH employees who have learned today that your employment is being abruptly ended, we want to hear from you. @altcdc.bsky.social www.statnews.com/2025/02/14/f...

Our two papers on abortion bans and fertility/infant mortality are now out. In 14 states w/ abortion bans, fertility increased 1.7% and infant mortality increased 6%. Key takeaway is that these impacts were disproportionately felt among those w/ greatest structural disadvantages. Links below.

• increase prospects for government stability that accompany shifts in age structure. I am APPALLED by Natsios' lack of recognition of the life-saving benefits of contraceptive programming. Perhaps he should read this 2012 @thelancet.bsky.social analysis: www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

in case it's helpful to anyone, here are the email drafts I just sent to my mom and sister (both non-scientists) to have them contact their reps: docs.google.com/document/d/1...

This is a de facto massive budget cut to research universities. We are talking Great Recession size impacts.

Every email: "I hope you are managing during these uncertain times."

The CDC’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey has monitored the wellbeing of America’s high school students since 1991. Since 2015, it’s been a vital source of data on LGBQ youth. In 2023, it provided the first ever nationally representative sample of transgender teens. As of this morning, it’s gone.

The CDC has begun purging data. Example: The youth risk behavior survey...

In case folks are looking for a place to archive the data: www.datalumos.org/datalumos/

I’m very tangentially involved in our (BU and Harvard) efforts to archive data and am happy to connect you w/ the core team of folks working on this. Just let me know. A lot of what they’re archiving is / will be preserved on dataverse.harvard.edu

A colleague asked whether I thought the government would continue the public release of its data products. The data from CDC health monitoring surveys, decades of data on mortality, crime data, climate data of a variety of types that go back for years, etc. 1/

Anyone else working now to download as many public use cdc data files as possible? 🫠

Just got e-mail. The NIA study section I am on Jan 31st "will not meet as planned". Quoting SRO: "At the present time, all Federal advisory committee meetings are cancelled... We will be back in touch with you when we have further information."

According to this article, they have ordered CDC/NCHS to stop releasing data. Make sure you've downloaded what you need, #EpiSky. Some of the executive orders affect variables in these datasets.

Now IUSSP is also on Bluesky! More excellent demography accounts to follow 😊 bsky.app/profile/iuss... #demography #PopulationStudies #AcademicChatter

📢 Exciting Opportunity! Vienna Institute of Demography Wittgenstein Centre & OEAW is seeking a PhD Student to join the Population Data and Projections Research Group. 📊📉 📍Vienna, Austria 📅 Deadline: January 31st, 2025 🔗https://www.oeaw.ac.at/fileadmin/subsites/Jobs/VID/VID181DOC124.pdf

New NSFG survey data available 🎉👍 Response rate 23% 👎🥺😢 User Guide warns caution in making comparisons over time, which limits the value of this data. 💔

PFRH's @alisongemmill.bsky.social guests on the latest episode of Vox Media's Explain It to Me podcast, providing scientific context to help answer the question: Is Cuffing Season real? Snuggle up and listen now: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/i...

I had so much fun participating in this podcast about cuffing season. I got to talk about one of my favorite subjects-- seasonality of reproductive outcomes (around the 15 min mark)! The episode also features some great data about spikes in user activity on dating apps. #demography

A new CDC report came out showing how little people are able to access contraception in the US. I talked to @cnn.com about what that looks like locally and how we stayed open to help make it better. www.cnn.com/2024/12/11/h...

The coolest postdoc I know is now accepting applications: 🧪🔬THE WITTIG POSTDOC IN FEMINIST BIOLOGY🧪🔬 Our interdisciplinary program @ UW Madison seeks to train the next generation of feminist scientists/scholars of science Please share widely and read more here: crgw.gws.wisc.edu/scholarships...

I know everyone is talking about Matt Gaetz but please don't miss this: Georgia fired every single person on its maternal mortality review committee. Why? They didn't like that reporters found out that the state's ban killed two women www.propublica.org/article/geor...

This is how they cover up what abortion bans do — fire anyone who helps tell the stories of harm. Everyone who is or can be pregnant will pay the price. www.propublica.org/article/geor...

I'm so glad that we are rebuilding #AcademicTwitter and #ScienceTwitter! They were extremely important communities, and their decline was a genuine loss. I am grateful and hopeful that Bluesky is giving us the chance to rebuild these remarkable human networks. #AcademicSky #ScienceSky

We're hiring at the associate level in the field of population research at UW-Madison. The call takes a broad view of what constitutes population research, and is agnostic as to research methods. Apply here! jobs.wisc.edu/jobs/associate-professor-of-sociology-madison-wisconsin-united-states

Linda Greenhouse: "So now we find ourselves in a new natalist moment when the top lawyers of three states feel free to call openly on the federal courts for help in making women have more babies." www.nytimes.com/2024/11/18/o...

Starter Packs feels a bit like making a mixtape to this 80s kid... I ran into the max number pretty fast so apologies to anyone I missed and I'll have to make a Volume II!: go.bsky.app/2ZUFQtv

We know that socio-historical experiences shape lifetime lifecourse exposures. What is less clear are the consequences for later-life health outcomes. Here is an example of how major migration patterns played a role in shaping dementia risk for US Blacks and Whites. tinyurl.com/4j93fvck

NEW: Private schools across the South that were established for white children during desegregation are now benefiting from tens of millions in taxpayer dollars flowing from rapidly expanding voucher-style programs, a @propublica analysis found. www.propublica.org/article/segr...

Check your carrots. The CDC warns of a bad E. coli outbreak across at least 18 states with one death identified so far.

For PhD students close to finishing, you may be wondering about postdocs. @ermayeda.bsky.social wrote this nice essay a few years ago. Still very relevant. #EpiSky #AcademicSky www.linkedin.com/pulse/postdo...

Someone had to do it! I created a starter pack for #Alzheimer’s #dementia #ADRD researchers on Bluesky. Please let me know who I left out! Hoping more and more of us will join Bluesky go.bsky.app/22DpUEy

Mostly #work-family sociologists so far. Reach out for an add! go.bsky.app/63Jq944

Excited to attend this conference for the first time! I’ll be presenting with others to discuss research on the health consequences of abortion bans.

🚨 Calling all demographers! 🚨 I’m teaching a grad level demographic methods course next semester (an intro to the methods of formal and social demography). Have you written a paper that should be on the syllabus? Let me know! Bonus points if you’d be willing to Zoom in to talk about the work 😉