Population Studies and Training Center
Population Studies and Training Center (PSTC)
Understanding local, national, and global population challenges through fieldwork, data science, and research-to-policy approaches.
Population Studies and Training Center (PSTC)
Understanding local, national, and global population challenges through fieldwork, data science, and research-to-policy approaches.
Recent News from PSTC
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News from PSTC
Congratulations to our 2025 PSTC Graduates!
Celebrating the Class of 2025
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Sociologist and Demographer Courtney Boen is on a team developing a multi-level intervention strategy for Black neighborhoods in Philadelphia, in order to reduce health inequities perpetuated by structural racism.
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News from PSTC
Brown at PAA 2025
Every year Brown faculty, postdocs, and trainees present scholarly research papers and/or professional posters at the Annual Meeting of the Population Association of America. In addition, several researchers participate in the conference as chairs, panelists, or discussants. The PSTC compiles an annual list of these participants. Please consider attending sessions of our colleagues and students!
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Recent In the Media
View All In the Media Last month 31 men at Bluebonnet Detention Center in Anson, Texas, positioned their bodies in the shape of the letters “SOS,” a cry for help, as journalists flew overhead. Much has been written about the state of deportations under the Trump administration and the flouting of the Supreme Court’s orders, as well as the court’s temporary blocking of removals of Venezuelan migrants to a notorious prison complex in El Salvador. However, less has been said about how human rights violations are pervasive at detention centers all over the United States, including Bluebonnet.
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WBUR (Boston Public Radio)
A new website illuminates the history of Indigenous enslavement in New England
Brown University history professor Mack Scott grew up Indigenous in Rhode Island. He moved to the Narragansett reservation in Charlestown in middle school, where he was steeped in his culture. But prior to that he lived in Providence, where he said this identity was less present in his own life.
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Rhode Island PBS
Can green spaces make you happier?
Going outside and getting fresh air sure feels good, but does it make a measurable impact on our health?
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About the Center
What We Do
As a well-regarded population studies research and training center, the PSTC seeks to build and support collaborative teams that span disciplines and geographies and integrate research with training.
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Our People
Our interdisciplinary group of of dedicated scholars, faculty, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and trainees brings together diverse expertise and innovative perspectives to explore demographic complexities and address crucial challenges facing populations worldwide.
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Training & Education
The PSTC is committed to providing resources and training to the next generation of population scientists.
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Research Themes
Experiences in families play key roles in determining socioeconomic opportunities, education outcomes, health, and wellbeing around the globe. PSTC works to improve the welfare of children and families through the study of marriage, cohabitation, and fertility; childcare, adoption, and elder care; the impacts of education access and experience; intergenerational inequality; access to work; and life course health.
As some of the world's leading experts in migration and urbanization, our researchers are working to use new data and methods to understand the roles of migration and urbanization in climate change, development, health and disease, social movements, and other critical issues, addressing these challenges with extraordinary geographic and disciplinary reach.
Our researchers are working to build a deep understanding of the bidirectional causal relationships between population change and environmental change, through developing innovative measures and models of environmental change, and working with novel sources of data to develop solutions for a more sustainable world.
Economic development disrupts demographics, altering familial relationships and societal networks. Conversely, demographic shifts influence development. Population science addressing these intricacies ensures development fosters sustained, equitable welfare enhancement, including health and wellbeing. PSTC scholarship in this area is distinctive in its disciplinary and geographic breadth, and diverse methodologies.
More than 30 years into the AIDS epidemic and AIDS remains the leading cause of death among adolescents in sub-Saharan Africa. In the U.S., social inequalities are reflected in significant disparities in maternal mortality. The PSTC engages issues of reproductive health, HIV/AIDS, and gender with collaborations that emphasize population science and span anthropology, economics, sociology, medicine, and public health.
Programs and Initiatives
The PSTC is proud to house affiliated initiatives that provide rigorous research, training, and outreach opportunities for scholars across campus, as well as events that engage the public.
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Contact the Population Studies and Training Center
Address
Brown University
Box 1836
68 Waterman St.
Providence, RI 02912