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The Palgrave Handbook of Global Health Data Methods for Policy and Practice pp 321–340Cite as

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Describing Dynamic Populations: Demographic Data Methods

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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.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Regional Institute for Population Studies, University of Ghana, Accra, Ghana

    Ayaga A. Bawah

  2. School of Public Health, University of Health and Allied Sciences, Ho, Ghana

    Fred N. Binka

Authors
  1. Ayaga A. Bawah
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  2. Fred N. Binka
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics School of Medicine, and Institute for Global Health Sciences, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA

    Sarah B. Macfarlane

  2. CAZ Consulting Sarl, Bloomberg Data for Health Initiative, Geneva, Switzerland

    Carla AbouZahr

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Bawah, A.A., Binka, F.N. (2019). Describing Dynamic Populations: Demographic Data Methods. In: Macfarlane, S., AbouZahr, C. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Global Health Data Methods for Policy and Practice. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-54984-6_17

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-54984-6_17

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-137-54983-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-54984-6

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