The purpose of the Methodology Core is to foster high quality population research and to enhance scholarly productivity. Under the leadership of its co-chairs, Thomas A. DiPrete, Peter A. Messeri, and Julien Teitler, the Methodology Core organizes and integrates the many methodological strengths of CPRC faculty and facilitates the development of multi-method research projects in population research. The Methodological Core supports a wide range of methodologies used in population research, including: 1) quantitative data analysis, 2) survey and administrative data collection, 3) qualitative and mixed methods, 4) experimental designs and field interventions, and 5) spatial data analysis.
To achieve its goals the Methodology Core: inventories and facilitates access to existing methodological resources throughout the Columbia University system; strengthens graduate student, post doctoral, and junior faculty development in quantitative and qualitative methodologies for population research; provides an institutional home for ethnographic, community-based participatory research and mixed method approaches to population research; and supports the New York City Studies Initiative in developing a multilayered population health database for New York City.
Inventory and Facilitate Access to Existing Methodological Resources
The Methodology Core provides expertise and resources for population research by centralizing information about existing expertise, strengthening existing and developing new institutional connections, and assisting its faculty and affiliates in connecting with the methodological resources they need.
Strengthen Training in Quantitative and Qualitative Methodologies
The Methodology Core sponsors colloquia and workshops that focus on methodological issues of relevance to population research. The initial workshops will focus on issues related to the New York City Studies Initiative—specifically, fielding the next wave of the New York Social Indicators survey, developing the ethnographic complement to it, and combining those data with existing geo-coded survey data and administrative records. A second set of workshops will provide day-long intensive courses on various methodologies of use to population health researchers.
Provide an Institutional Home for Ethnographic and Mixed Method Approaches to Population Research
The Methodological Core provides the structure for resource coordination and exchanges among qualitative and mixed methods researchers by facilitating scholarly interactions among researchers actively employing these methods, and organizing colloquia and workshops around ethnographic methodological issues (e.g., the use of visual images and artifacts in ethnographies, multi-site ethnography, and repeat study ethnography).
Develop a Multilayered Population Health Database of New York City
As part of the New York City Studies Initiative and in conjunction with the Computing, Data and Information Core, the Methodology Core provides methodological oversight in the development of the proposed New York City database. The Methodology Core resource faculty provide guidance on the best methods for rigorous applications of existing New York City data sources to small area analysis and on the selection and development of valid instruments to measure gaps in current New York City data sources.