California Center for Population Research (CCPR) at UCLA

OVERALL PROJECT SUMMARY The California Center for Population Research (CCPR) is a university-wide interdisciplinary research center at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). CCPR stimulates, advances, and supports ambitious, high- impact, interdisciplinary research on the most important issues in population dynamics by 1) sustaining and strengthening an intellectually stimulating, supportive, and collegial environment for interdisciplinary population research; 2) investing in the next generation of population scientists through extensive mentoring and support; 3) providing excellent administrative, technical, and methodological support at all stages of the research process; 4) promoting the development and use of innovative research methods; 5) reducing barriers to accessing population data and supporting new data collection; 6) disseminating CCPR research and data to a variety of audiences. CCPR benefits from a supportive university environment that encourages interdisciplinary research and in which all units – from the social sciences to the public health and medical schools – are located on the same walkable campus. UCLA provides CCPR with generous support, contingent on CCPR maintaining its NICHD funding. With this NICHD and UCLA support, CCPR has been thriving these past two decades and now has 139 faculty Affiliates from 17 departments across campus. To maintain CCPR centeredness, we have introduced a new form of affiliation for the most active Affiliates, with currently 70 faculty “Fellows.” Concurrently, as CCPR collaborations and activities extend beyond the UCLA campus, we have 32 external affiliates, including colleagues from under-resourced institutions (URIs). CCPR's research focuses primarily on four areas: 1) increasing diversity of the family and its consequences for family members' well-being, focusing mainly on family disruption, families in poverty, and multigenerational families; 2) migration and immigration and its consequences for society, health, and well-being; 3) racism and discrimination, poverty, and other structural factors in producing wide gaps in health and mortality, as well as the means for reducing these gaps; 4) long- term and recent fertility and contraceptive use changes, how to improve reproductive health outcomes for women and children, and the social and policy contexts of HIV/AIDS. While conducting cutting-edge fundamental research in these areas, CCPR Fellows frequently work with governmental agencies and non- profit organizations on applied research projects and policy issues. We are requesting funding for CCPR's Administrative, Development, and Scientific and Technical Cores. These cores substantially increase the cost-effectiveness of NICHD and other NIH funding for a large portfolio of CCPR research projects. The research opportunities and services these Cores provide also enhance the productivity, quality, and impact of CCPR Fellows' research and are prioritized for early-stage researchers.