Deane’s scientific accomplishments come from his methodological contributions and may be grouped under two general themes: (1) spatial data analysis and (2) longitudinal data analysis. Generally, his research methods are set in a substantive context that links population and environment; and he collaborates with researchers across a wide range of disciplines and institutions, including population/social scientists at CIESIN-Columbia University (“The Spatial Distribution of Global Poverty and its Biophysical Determinants”); University of Michigan (“Demography and Environment in Grassland Settlement”; “Population and Environment in the US Great Plains”); University of Oregon (“Analysis of the Effects of Environmental Treaties”); Western Washington (“Exploring Spatial Dynamics of Neighborhood Migration”); as well as such CSDA associates as Kirsten Davison, Lawrence Schell, and Steven Messner.
To give some examples of his role: In the collaboration with Myron Gutmann on population and environment in the Great Plains, Deane’s methodological contribution accounts for temporal and spatial residual dependence in precursor county clusters via Event History Analysis methods for repeated events and via generalized estimating equations (GEE) and extra-local dependence through a spatial lag. A recent paper from this project in Population and Environment (with Gutmann, Lauster, and Peri) uses this approach to reveal the changing composition of environmental factors that influenced Great Plains migration during the 20th century. For the widely publicized CIESIN report on global poverty, Deane helped the team to apply a general spatial regression model that allows for spatial error (due to spatial smoothing of point-polygon data) and spatial lag (true spatial dependence due to physical proximity). Preliminary results from this project show that some geophysical factors (e.g., length of growing season, drought, and distance to coastline) are important covariates of infant mortality, but that the strength and direction of effects vary by global ecological regimes (biomes). In his collaborations with CSDA associates Lawrence Schell and Kirsten Davison (on the projects, “Native Americans, Environmental Exposures and Health” and “Predictors of Physical Activity Among Adolescent Girls,” respectively), Deane applied methods for investigating latent trajectories (in menstruation and activity measures, respectively) as a function of exposures to environmental conditions. In each case, the methods are innovative in their applications, and as such, help to generate new insights into the linkages of population and environment
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Externally funded work
Deane is Co-PI on a pending proposal “Sibling Influences on Parent-Adult Child Relations” (NICHD, with Glenna Spitze, PI and Russell Ward, co-PI) that received a priority score of 129 (2.5 percentile). The purpose of the proposed research is to investigate how relationships between aging parents and their adult children are imbedded in and influenced by relationships with other adult children. Knowledge of these family influences will help us understand how family networks operate and how decisions about intergenerational resources affect parents and children.
Deane has been a Co-PI on an NIH-funded (R03) grant, he is currently involved in three externally funded research projects as a statistical consultant, and he served as statistical consultant on all of the collaborative work described above
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Work in progress and pending/planned research projects
In addition to the research projects described above, Deane has several manuscripts under review (to go with previous publications) in the area of crime and deviance. Many of the methodological contributions developed during that work are also being applied to his research agenda on population and environment. In addition, Deane has recently begun work with environmental scientists at the University at Albany, University of Quebec at Montreal, and McGill, on the developmental trajectories of storms into hurricanes. Work from this project has been presented at several climatology conferences.
Contribution to the population research program
Deane is currently the Associate Director of the Lewis Mumford Center and director of CSDA’s Information and Data Services core, through which CSDA achieves its public infrastructure mission; he serves on CSDA’s Executive Committee and Advisory Board; he collaborates widely across disciplines with CSDA associates and with others in the population-research community; and he continues to do research and publish in the Center’s signature areas and in the Center’s new initiative areas.
Use of infrastructure cores and activities
Through his position as Associate Director of the Mumford Center and as director of CSDA’s Information and Data Services core, Deane relies heavily on all CSDA infrastructure cores. In addition he consumes, and produces, many of the public infrastructure activities.