Management of the Urban Forest: A Zip Code Level Approach

Management of the urban forest in a city the size of Philadelphia requires the cooperation and partnership of a variety of organizations and individuals. Philly Tree People (PTP), a neighborhood-based tree planting and tree care non-profit organization, has made a considerable contribution to growing and maintaining the urban forest in their service area, the 19125 and 19134 zip codes of Philadelphia, PA, and is one of the partners in management of the urban forest. Currently, the organization does not have a streamlined solution for managing the data about the activities and services it performs or that occur in the urban forest within their service area. They are in need of (1) a better way to manage information about the urban forest in their service area; (2) access to integrated data about the current urban forest in their service area with the ability to search, sort, map, and plan and prepare for service and maintenance; (3) new ways to market to residents within their service area that they are not reaching with current marketing and outreach methods; and (4) a strategy to take advantage of sustainable and diverse funding opportunities. This capstone addresses the four needs described above. This project includes the merger of disparate administrative data sets into a searchable and sortable data set about the urban forest within the PTP service area. ArcGIS is used to map the administrative data available so that it can be queried and used to answer questions about the service area. Marketing and outreach suggestions for those areas that have been identified with mapping as being in need of trees are also incorporated. The ultimate goal is to help position the organization to continue their success into the next five years and beyond

Out of Sync? Demographic and Other Social Science Research on Health Conditions in Developing Countries

A framework is presented for considering for what health conditions in developing countries the marginal social benefits of demographic and social science research are likely to be relatively high. Based on this framework, it is argued that the relative current and future predicted prevalence of burdens of different health/disease conditions as measured by Disability-Adjusted-Life-Years (DALYs) represent fairly well some important factors related to the relative marginal social benefits of demographic and social science research on different health conditions. World Health Organization (WHO) DALYs projections for 2005-30 are compared with (a) demographic and other social science studies on health in developing countries during 1990-2005 and (b) presentations at the Population Association of America annual meetings during the same time period. These comparisons suggest that, recent demographic and social science research on health in developing countries has overfocused substantially relatively on HIV/AIDS and underfocused substantially relatively on non-communicable diseases

Out of Sync? Demographic and other social science research on health conditions in developing countries

In this paper, we present a framework for considering whether the marginal social benefits of demographic and social science research on various health conditions in developing countries are likely to be relatively high. Based on this framework, we argue that the relative current and future predicted prevalence of burdens of different health/disease conditions, as measured by disability-adjusted life years (DALYs), provide a fairly accurate reflection of some important factors related to the relative marginal social benefits of demographic and social science research on different health conditions. World Health Organization (WHO) DALYs projections for 2005-30 are compared with (a) demographic and other social science studies on health in developing countries during 1990-2005, and (b) presentations made at the Population Association of America annual meetings during the same time period. These comparisons suggest that recent demographic and social science research on health in developing countries has focused too much on HIV/AIDS, and too little on non-communicable diseases

Preface to the Rostock Debate on Demographic Change

The first Rostock Debate on Demographic Change, which took place on February 21, 2006, centered on the following question: Should governments in Europe push much more aggressively for gender equality to raise fertility? The four debaters were Laurent Toulemon from the Institut National d'Etudes Demograhiques (France), Dimiter Philipov from the Vienna Institute of Demography (Austria), Livia Olah from Stockholm University (Sweden), and Gerda Neyer from the Max Planck Institute (Germany)