Bringing the science (with lots of links)

My dissertation advisor, Sam Clark, is the person who got me involved in this project and got me to Africa. He has a long relationship to this institution where my study is being conducted. Last week he visited for a few weeks for meetings and he and I got to talk about my dissertation.

Sam and I had spoken briefly about this idea before I left and I found it exciting. The idea is sort of at an intersection of demography, sociology, and health. When Sam arrived here we talked more about it and how it could work. Below are my notes from the meeting, summarizing three papers I would write and put together as a dissertation.

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Background: Agincourt in the observed period provides a complex setting for evaluating transition theories. Longitudinal data allow causal analysis. We expect that the complex changes in economy/development, health care provision, epidemiology, social inequality and government policies will make it a difficult test case for transitions theories and could contribute to revisions of classical theoretical frameworks.

1. Describe demographic transition in Agincourt 1993-2008. Compare causes, timing, and effects of Agincourt transitions to classic DTT. Are trends in age-specific fertility and mortality rates statistically identifiable?
   
   
2. Describe changing epidemiology of Agincourt 1993-2008. Evaluate usefulness of epi. transition theory in this setting where it appears noncommunicable diseases are gaining traction at same time there is are epidemics of communicable diseases like HIV and TB. Relate all-cause mortality levels and trends to cause-specific profiles of mortality.
   
   
3. Create a migration typology using model-based clustering as the method for identifying which HHs will migrate in which ways. Show clusters by SES rank. SES index can be improved, probably through principal components analysis, to more closely identify livelihood strategies common to SES categories. Do identified clusters predict HH composition? Migration history? SES? Geographic location?
   

Yesterday a friend and I drove to the grocery store only to find it closed at 3:00 on Sunday, so on the journey back we travelled out of our way to go to a pizza place. The pizza place was closed too, but across the street was this friendly neighborhood rhinoceros. He was in a fenced enclosure chewing on grass like just any other domesticated animal. We joked that his owner would come out with a leash when it was time to go in.

I'm sure the rhino isn't that domesticated, but I'm not sure how to explain what he was doing there. I also can't imagine he gets enough calories from the little dried grass on the ground this winter. Here's the evidence...




Plus a picture showing the mountains in the background.




Also on this trip I saw many waterbuck, antelope, warthogs, hornbills and baboons. Finding those animals has become routine so I don't write about it much.