Research Themes

Headquartered at DUPRI and organized around the two broad research themes of Health and Human Development and Population Health and Aging, the federally funded Duke Population Research Center (DPRC) and the Center for Population Health and Aging (CPHA) implement Duke's comprehensive, leading-edge population research portfolio. Providing an agile infrastructure and unique collaboration opportunities for a networked community of scientists, DUPRI supports DPRC and CPHA’s synergistic relationship.

While the two centers each have distinct intellectual goals and funding sources, their shared intellectual interests incentivize the cross-fertilization of ideas and methods. As the hub for population research at Duke, DUPRI provides the organizational framework for DPRC and CPHA.

Crowd of People

Duke Population Research Center (DPRC)

With a mission to catalyze cutting edge research into the fundamental questions of population well-being, the Duke Population Research Center (DPRC) is a dynamic community of interdisciplinary population researchers at Duke. The contributions of DPRC researchers fall under two primary research areas: Foundations of Lifelong Health and Interconnected Social Systems and Population Health. DPRC researchers also examine  how social and environmental features contribute to the early life precursors of divergent health trajectories through the Durham Population Lab initiative.

Senior Couple

The Center for Population Health and Aging (CPHA)

With a legacy that extends over four decades, the Duke Center for Population Health and Aging (CPHA) provides a synergistic, interdisciplinary environment for advancing cutting-edge research and cultivating faculty and students focused on the study of Aging. The Center has three major intellectual commitments in the overlapping areas of Biodemography (biological and biomedical demography of aging), Life Course Studies and Intergenerational Studies, including the transmission of health and longevity.