Office
Box 90312
Durham, NC 27708-0312
236 Rubenstein Hall
Durham, NC 27708
Phone
(919) 613-9305
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M. Giovanna Merli
Professor in the Sanford School of Public Policy
Director of the Duke Population Research Center
Professor of Sociology in the Department of Sociology
Research Professor of Global Health
Areas of Expertise
- Demography
- Global Health
- HIV/AIDS
Education
Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania (1996)
M.A., University of Pennsylvania (1993)
In The News
Awards and Honors
Bio
My research straddles three disciplinary realms: demography, contemporary Chinese society and global health. I focus on a range of population and health issues in developing countries that intersect frontline public policy, such as the role of China's population control program in lowering fertility preferences and fertility rates in China, the social and behavioral determinants of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases and the methodological evaluation and implementation of network-based approaches to sample hard-to-reach and hidden populations such as those at risk of contracting HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases as well as undocumented migrants.
Representative Publications
Brief Report: Respondent-driven Sampling Estimators Under Real and Theoretical Recruitment Conditions of Female Sex Workers in China. Epidemiology (Cambridge, Mass.) (09/2015)
Challenges to recruiting population representative samples of female sex workers in China using Respondent Driven Sampling Social Science & Medicine (01/2015)
Respondent driven sampling is an effective method for engaging methamphetamine users in HIV prevention research in South Africa. Drug and Alcohol Dependence (10/2014)
Selected Grants
Focused Training in Social Networks and Health (Investigator)
Duke Population Research Institute (Principal Investigator)
Testing Multiple Modes of Data Collection with Network Sampling with Memory (Principal Investigator)
Using Multiple Data Sources to Improve Respondent Driven Sampling Estimation (Principal Investigator)
Developing an Interdisciplinary Graduate Curriculum in Global Health (Course Faculty)