Call for Papers

Seminar on Ageing in Developing Countries: Building Bridges for Integrated Research Agendas.

Seminar on Ageing in Developing Countries: Building Bridges for Integrated Research Agendas.
Organised by the IUSSP Panel on Ageing in Developing Countries, the Latin American Demography Center (CELADE), Network for Research on Aging in Latin America and the Caribbean (REALCE), Network of Researchers on Aging in Developing Countries (University of Michigan), with the financial support of the NIA (National Institute of Aging), CELADE and the IUSSP.
Santiago, Chile, 23-24 April 2007

Population ageing varies widely across nations. Most importantly, the stages of socioeconomic and cultural conditions within which these processes take place vary greatly across nations. In many developed countries, ageing started decades ago and the elderly now represent a relatively high proportion of the population. In most developing countries, even though the base numbers of the elderly may be relatively small, the speed at which the ageing process is occurring is much higher than the one experienced by developed countries.

For developed countries, population ageing started later in their epidemiological transition, when the prevalence of infectious diseases was quite low. In many developing countries undergoing the process of ageing, their populations still exhibit high prevalence of infectious diseases, creating peculiar conditions for those in the elderly groups who are simultaneously under the onslaught of chronic conditions. The scientific understanding of the relations between survival to early childhood infections and adult health status is still too primitive to enable us to establish precise predictions regarding the nature of expected health impairments in old age. In addition, virtually none of the developing countries has the institutional context designed to cope with changed demands from a growing elderly population. Thus in almost all cases a highly compressed ageing process will take place with weak economic performance, changing intergenerational relations, and fragile institutional contexts that limit access to goods and health services.

The seminar will bring together scholars from a variety of countries across the globe, and the organizers will target all major regions to be represented. The scientific program seeks to promote discussion on cross-cutting issues of ageing processes, compare alternative study designs for data collection, share information and approaches to key problems, disseminate and encourage the use of existing data sources, and foster the development of new sources capitalizing on past research findings in the developed and developing world. We expect discussions around common themes, the formation of working groups, and the emergence of new, revised integrated agendas for ageing research in the developing world.

Possible research themes include:

•Empirical assessment of ageing processes: dynamics of growth of the elderly and its implications for the nature of ageing in different regions.

•Key dimensions of the ageing processes: health status; health and wellbeing of older adults in the context of extreme poverty and inequalities; health care systems and old age pensions in environments with competing needs and low economic resources; residential arrangements and intra-family transfers and their interaction with institutional care and community support to compress morbidity.

•Sources of data and information: comparisons of alternative ways to assess physical and mental health status and its dynamics (self-reports, vignettes, biomarkers, anthropometric data).

•Translations of research findings into policy prescriptions: examples of evaluations of the role of social security and health institutions in affecting the wellbeing of the elderly; limitations of public institutions to translate research findings into policy frameworks.

Papers must address empirical aspects of one or more of the research themes but may include social science research, clinical or biomedical research, service provision, or policy perspectives. The papers may be country- or region-specific, although comparative papers including comparisons with developed countries are particularly encouraged. Although the seminar does not target any particular low-income region we are seeking special representation of papers devoted to the situation in Africa.

Researchers interested in contributing to the seminar should submit completed papers online, which must be unpublished, by 31 October 2006 , on the IUSSP website.

To submit please use the

Please see the guidelines for authors of communications.

These papers may be submitted in English, French, Spanish or Portuguese.

Applicants will be notified whether their paper has been accepted by 1 December 2006.

The organisers expect to have funds available for travel and local expenses for a limited number of selected participants. Applicants are encouraged to seek their own travel funding, but if they require travel assistance, they should indicate this need by ticking the appropriate box on the on-line submission form when submitting their paper.

For further information, please contact Rebeca Wong (wongr@umd.edu) or Alberto Palloni (palloni@ssc.wisc.edu)