My research is organized primarily around two main areas: (1) formal demography; and (2) understanding health disparities across and within populations. In the area of formal demography, I have designed new methodologies for better understanding mortality levels and trends, and for studying their impact on population growth and aging. I have also made contributions in the area of model age patterns of mortality and indirect estimation methods, with a focus on under-5 mortality. In the area of health disparities, I have examined the burden of disease among the global poor, and have studied the health of vulnerable ethnic, religious, and immigrant groups in a range of populations, including India, the former Soviet republics of Central Asia, and France.
My current projects involve the study of interactions between nutrition, stillbirths, and neonatal deaths in Ethiopia, India, Guinea-Bissau, and The Gambia. I also co-lead a project on the study of the impact of COVID-19 on cohort mortality.
Since 2024, I serve as Chair of the Technical Advisory Group (TAG) and the Core Stillbirth Estimation Group (CSEG) of the United Nations Inter-Agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation (UN IGME).
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