Centre for Population Studies

Head of Unit: Lynda Clarke
Unit Research Degree Co-ordinators: Emily Grundy, Basia Zaba
Unit Administrator: Carolyn Hartley

Tel: +44-20-7299-4622, Fax: +44-20-7299 4637

The Centre for Population Studies (CPS) is a research unit within the Department of Epidemiology & Population Health of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. CPS is engaged in the measurement and explanation of population trends and in the evaluation of attempts to modify them. With 22 academic and academic-related staff, CPS represents the largest research group in Britain concerned with demography, reproductive health research, and related disciplines. The Centre is active in research both on Britain, Europe and other developed countries, and in research on the developing world, where it has a regional focus on sub-Saharan Africa and South and South-East Asia.

CPS has strong programmes of research in the demography of ageing, reproductive and sexual health, and the demographic impact of the AIDS epidemic in Africa and mathematical modelling of the AIDS epidemic. Other fields of research in which the Centre is active include family demography, medical demography, global health, health inequalities, the burden of disease, and the indirect estimation of fertility and mortality in developing countries. The Centre also hosts CeLSIUS - the support team for academic users of the ONS Longitudinal Study. CPS adopts a multidisciplinary approach to its activities. The staff combine expertise in demography and reproductive health with backgrounds and experience in sociology, anthropology, psychology, policy analysis, operations research, economics, mathematics, statistics, biology, epidemiology and public health.

CPS provides much of the teaching for the MSc Demography and Health and the MSc Reproductive & Sexual Health Research. It is host to 20-25 research students at any time. The Centre is a long-established ESRC-recognised outlet for postgraduate training and was awarded both 1+3 and +3 recognition for Economic and Social Research Council studentships in their 2005 recognition exercise, together with a quota of studentships. These studentships provide funding either for a MSc in the Centre followed by a PhD or for the doctoral studies of individuals already holding an ESRC-approved MSc degree. The thesis titles of the students awarded research degrees in recent years give some indication of the wide range of topics on which students can undertake research.