As fertility rates drop, it is evident that there are major economic and demographic consequences across the world. According to the researcher Melissa Pregasen, the replacement level of fertility at which the population will become stable is 2.1 children per woman given typical contemporary mortality levels. In other words, the average amount of births is…
Tag: Health
Research Quick Take: Postpartum Depressive Symptoms during the Beginning of the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Examination of Population Birth Data from Central New Jersey
Between nine and thirteen percent of women report symptoms of depression during pregnancy or the postpartum period, constituting a significant public health problem. Studies have found that postpartum depression is correlated with many forms of stress, including divorce, the death of a loved one, poverty and financial strain, and overall poor health. During the first…
Research Quick Take: Identifying county-level factors for female breast cancer incidence rate through a large-scale population study
Geographers can bring a unique spatial perspective to topics in a variety of disciplines. Zhao et al. (2020) use spatial statistics to improve our understanding of breast cancer. To do so, they analyze the spatial variation in the incidence rate of female breast cancer across the United States. This is the largest scale study, as…
Research Quick Take: When Religion Hurts: Structural Sexism and Health in Religious Congregations
Sociologists Homan and Burdette are concerned with understanding how gender inequality operates in society. Their study focuses on how structural sexism affects the health of women in religious institutions. Religious congregations are a novel way of examining sexism. They represent a meso-level in between other scales of sexism that have been studied, such as state-level…
Grad Student Spotlight: Devon Coates from the Department of Public Health
What department are you a graduate student in? I am a graduate student in the Master of Public Health Program. Why did you decide to go to graduate school? If I am being honest, I decided to go to graduate school because I am very competitive and I believe having a master’s degree would differentiate…
Research Spotlight: Safe Until Proven Otherwise: The Manifold Consequences of Leaded Gasoline
The legal thriller Dark Waters (2019) staring Mark Ruffalo follows the recent real-life story of Robert Bilot, an environmental corporate lawyer turned environmental advocate. In it, Bilot seeks accountability from Dupont corporation for contaminating Parkersburg, West Virginia with the noxious yet unregulated chemical PFOA — a key component of Teflon and cause of cancer and…
Graduate Student Spotlight: Saher Khan from the Department of Public Health
What department are you a graduate student in? My name is Saher Khan, and I am a graduate student of the master’s in public health Program. Why did you decide to go to graduate school? I was working as a general dentist when the pandemic hit, and in as few words as possible, I would…
Research Award Spotlight: Sociology professor selected for research fellowship program
Associate Professor of Sociology Dawn Carr has been selected for a new pilot program instituted by the FSU Office of Research designed to facilitate interdisciplinary research and streamline the processes for conducting research at the university. Carr was selected for the Faculty Fellows Program on the basis of her proposal to develop a framework for…
Meet a Social Scientist: Dawn Carr from the Department of Sociology
Why did you decide to become an academic? Initially, I didn’t want to become an academic. I was raised by an academic (my father) and was intimidated by the idea of fitting the mold of what I saw of academia at that time in history. That said, as I was completing my master’s degree, I…
Award Winning Research: Resilience as an Exciting New Agenda
Most of my work to date has dealt with what most people would consider sad things; things we’d rather not think about. Generally, I study health and societal problems that primarily impact older adults. Chronic disease, disablement, dementia, and death are not easy topics of conversation. However, I find them tremendously important to write about,…
Wicked Problems, Wicked Solutions 