On December 6th, 2024 the CenSoc team hosted a CenSoc Users Conference. The conference was held at UC Berkeley, with the option for participants to attend remotely. The conference featured a lineup of interdisciplinary researchers from academic institutions including UC Berkeley, University of Wisconsin, Gonzaga University, the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Austin Peay State University, UC San Francisco, University of Oxford, William & Mary, Pennsylvania State University, and University of Albany.

Across three thematic sessions, researchers delivered 12 presentations using CenSoc data for new empirical investigations. The topics covered included racial segregation’s role in shaping old age mortality outcomes, the long-term impacts of disasters like urban fires on health and mobility, and disparities in mortality resulting from environmental factors such as extreme temperatures. Other presentations focused on the influence of childhood exposure to agricultural pests on mortality, the mortality advantage of working women, and the Black-White Mortality crossover. The conference concluded with a discussion of best practices for working with CenSoc data and new CenSoc data infrastructure developments. The conference materials are available in this Google Drive Folder.

We plan to run another CenSoc Users Conference in the 2025/2026 academic year. Please get in touch if you are interested in participating!