DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The purpose of the project is to provide training workshops for graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and early career faculty interested in acquiring formal demography skills. Formal demography consists of a set of analytic tools that allow for a kind of analysis not possible with standard statistical models and are therefore criticl in addressing the kinds of complex population processes occurring in the 21st century. In this program we will build upon the successful training workshops started at Stanford University, by moving that program's research format to UC Berkeley and adding new components of core training, special emphasis themes and mentored research projects. The program consists of annual week-long meetings, composed of 3 days of core training with proven instructors, followed by a two-day conference with invited presenters. In the academic year following the week-long meeting, trainees will engage in a mentored research project emerging from these workshops. The three days of core training will include instruction on population dynamics and hands-on training in modern demographic computing (in the R statistical modeling language). A third day will include training and methods specific to that year's special emphasis. These workshops not only serve as training grounds, but also provide ample opportunities for networking and building relationships and community. The topics covered in the workshops will be macroeconomic demography, bio demography and genetic demography, demographic research with Big Data, and Aggregate approaches to demographic change using the Human Mortality and Human Fertility Databases. In the final year the program will repeat a theme based on the experience of previous years, modified to reflect new developments in that field. These elements - training, research presentations, mentored research, networking - work to create a long-lasting community of scholars that can engage in interdisciplinary research for years to come. In this way we expect that the topics of these studies will serve to inform demographic research and have positive impacts in particular on US health policy.

PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: This educational program is designed to train the next generation of population researchers in the methods in formal demography necessary for research in macroeconomic demography, bio demography, emerging data sources, as well as fertility and mortality trends. The workshop program each year consists of a three-day workshop of hands-on training in the methods, a two-day conference with presentations by guest researchers, followed by a year-long mentored research project. The population research supported by this training will facilitate informed decision making on public health policies and other issues relevant to the health of the U.S. population.