Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies

Program on the Global Demography of Aging

Overview

The Program on the Global Demography of Aging (PGDA), led by David E. Bloom, Clarence James Gamble Professor of Economics and Demography in the Department of Global Health and Population at the Harvard School of Public Health, and David Canning, Richard Saltonstall Professor of Population Sciences, and Professor of Economics and International Health, HSPH, and associate director of the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, 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.

The output of the program is in the form of research seminars, working papers, publications, workshops and research proposals. The Program for the Global Demography of Aging provides support for research on demographic change and aging throughout the world, with a particular focus on developing countries. An important component of this research is the role of burden of disability and disease in aging, particularly the measurement of this burden, as well as analyzing its causes and consequences. PGDA supports existing program of research at Harvard University as well as encourages the development of new research and is a component of a wider university initiative on Global Health.

PGDA’s research focuses on three main themes:

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

For complete information on the PGDA at Harvard, click here.