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Vaupel Recognized for his Work in Mathematical Demography
James W. Vaupel, research professor at the Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy at Duke University and also director of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, Germany, was honored by being the recipient of the Mindel C. Sheps Award on 18 April 2008 for his contributions to the methodological foundations of demography. This award is one of the most prestigious international awards in demography and is given biennially for outstanding contributions to mathematical demography. It was presented to Vaupel by the Population Association of America and the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill). The award is named for Mindel C. Sheps, MD (1913-1973), who became an expert in statistics as well as demographic and biological aspects of fertility through her studies on the impact of social factors on public health.
Although demography brings together many disciplines and includes methodological approaches from the humanities and social sciences as well as from medicine and biology, it is mathematical methodology that is often the key to solving demographic problems. Among Vaupel's pioneering contributions in the field of mathematical demography is the introduction and application of so-called frailty models to the field of population science. Frailty models bring new understanding to an individual's or a group's risk of death with age.
At Duke University, Vaupel recently founded the Duke Population Research Institute, comprised of highly interdisciplinary researchers. Some of Vaupel's work in the institute has been focused on the new field of evolutionary demography. Vaupel and colleagues propose to use complex mathematical functions to model the impact of various factors on the aging of different organisms.
As the founding director of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, which is now one of the most renowned research institutions in the world in the population sciences, Vaupel emphasized mathematical demography from the outset. To understand the long-term development of populations or the life histories of individuals, Vaupel says that a solid mathematical foundation is required. To interpret the relationships between complex phenomena, Vaupel will often advise his institute researchers to go back to the basics of "births, deaths, and mathematics." To Vaupel, this is the heart of demography.
In addition to this current honor, the Population Association of America awarded James W. Vaupel its Irene B. Taeuber Award for lifetime research achievement in 2001. Vaupel is now only the 4th demographer in the history of the Population Association of America to be the recipient of both these awards.
Grant Submission - Male Versus Female Health and Survival
PPARC researchers and collaborators (both at Duke and at other universities and research organizations) submitted a Program Project (PO1) grant application to NIA in May 2007. The application text included seven different research projects all looking at various aspects of a human paradox. In terms of human longevity, it is a fact that women outlive men even though medical data suggest that men are healthier than women. The seven research projects investigate this paradox. It is hoped that this project, after resubmission in May 2008, will receive funding sometime in 2009.