Describing Dynamic Populations: Demographic Data Methods

Abstract

Bawah and Binka provide the essentials of demography, the discipline that describes and predicts how population structures change over time, whether across the world or in a small geographic area. Demonstrating the importance of measuring changing patterns of fertility, mortality and migration, the authors explain how an understanding of population dynamics can assist communities, governments, researchers and international agencies in planning population interventions. They describe major sources of demographic data and the unique methods demographers use to analyse these data. Building on their ground-breaking experience developing model life tables for Africa, the authors introduce innovative methods for electronic data collection, satellite imagery and geo-referencing that have improved data collection particularly in low-and middle-income countries.