The Program on the Global Demography of Aging (PGDA), led by David E. Bloom, chair of the Department of Global Health and Population at the Harvard School of Public Health, received funding from the National Institute on Aging at the National Institutes of Health to carry out research on important themes related to global aging and health, with an emphasis on issues in the developing world.  A key overarching theme focuses the expertise available at various schools at Harvard toward one of the pressing health questions of global aging, namely understanding the changing patterns of adult morbidity and mortality, including their measurements and causes, demographic and economic implications, and policies and programs for addressing and mitigating such implications.

PGDA’s research focuses on five main themes:

• measurement of the global pattern of disease, mortality, and morbidity in aging populations
• social determinants of population health and aging
• economics of Medicare
• demographic and economic consequences of global aging
• migration and aging