Emerita Professor Heather Booth
Areas of expertise
- Demography 1603
- Mortality 160304
- Stochastic Analysis And Modelling 010406
- Population Trends And Policies 160305
- Social Change 160805
- Family And Household Studies 160301
Research interests
Researchgate profile: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Heather_Booth
Heather’s research is situated in the DEMOGRAPHY OF AGEING. This includes:
- The future of structural population ageing through dynamic stochastic modelling. Heather is an international expert in stochastic modelling and forecasting of demographic rates and populations.
- Understanding mortality patterns, gaps and transitions through modelling and decomposition.
- The role of social networks with family and friends in the well-being of older people, and the socio-demography of ageing and longevity.
- Socio-demographic determinants of self-rated health and well-being at older ages.
- The future of longevity and mortality at very old ages, and its implications.
- Microsimulation modelling of disability at older ages.
See also https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Heather_Booth
Biography
Heather Booth is Professor and Director of Research in the School of Demography in the ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences, and leads the Group on Longevity, Ageing and Mortality (GLAM). She has over 30 years' experience in demographic research in both developed and developing countries. Her more recent work focusses on mortality modelling and forecasting, population ageing, and the socio-demography of longevity.
Heather is an Associate Investigator with the ARC Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research and an Associate Member of Nuffield College, Oxford. Heather was Founding Editor of the Journal of Population Research (JPR) from 2000 to 2006.
Heather began her career at the London School of Economics before moving to the USA to join the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In her doctoral research at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Heather developed the Booth Standard for use with the Brass Relational Gompertz Model of fertility. She then undertook research on ethnic minority populations in Britain and Western Europe. In 1984, Heather relocated to Nouméa, New Caledonia, to take up a position as demographer with the South Pacific Commission, working throughout the Pacific Islands. She has also worked as an international consultant with the UN and other funding agencies.
HEATHER'S PUBLICATIONS CAN BE DOWNLOADED HERE
Researcher's projects
Social Networks and Ageing Project (SNAP). Funded under an ARC Linkage grant (2010-2012), this project collected unique data and developed new tools. Analysis of survey data is ongoing, including examination of the role of homophily in the health of older people.
Development of DYNOPTAsim, a microsimulation model of age-related disability in Australia. This work stems from the NHMRC/ARC Dynamic Analyses to Optimise Ageing (DYNOPTA) project (2007-2012), of which Heather was a Chief Investigator.
Demographic forecasting with a focus on mortality forecasting. Collaborative research with colleagues at Monash University, Macquarie University, and the Paris-based Institut national d'etudes demographiques. This highly cost-effective research uses publicly available data.
Heather is Associate Investigator of the ARC Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research (CEPAR) coordinated by UNSW (2011-2017; 2018-2025).
Heather jointly led (with Zhongwei Zhao) the Interdisciplinary Microsimulation Project (IMP) (2011-2014) funded by the CASS Interdisciplinary Research Fund.
Heather leads the School of Demography Group on Longevity, Ageing and Mortality (GLAM).
See also https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Heather_Booth
Current student projects
Endogenous Diffusion Model of Entry into First Marriage: Theoretical and Empirical Progress in Nuptiality Models
Modelling Long Term Care in Australia: What Place of Insurance?
Past student projects
The role of social connectedness in the retirement process
Gender, ethnicity and well-being of the elderly in Indonesia
Cardio-vascular mortality in Chinese cities
The experiences and pathways of discontinuing school children in Fiji
Australian mortality in the 19th and early 20th centuries
Modes of aged care Vietnam: adaptation to change
Modelling residential aged care
Online social networking and the well-being of older Australians
Geodemographic and life-course persepectives of ageing in Australia for policy
Healthy Life Expectancy in the Philippines
+ many theses examining demographic processes in developing countries
Publications
- Booth, H 1992 The Migration Process in Britain and West Germany: Two Demographic Studies of Migrant Populations. Aldershot: Avebury, xx + 234pp.
- Castles, S, Booth, H, Wallace, T 1984 Here for Good: Western Europe's New Ethnic Minorities. London: Pluto Press, xii + 259pp.
- Joshua, H, Wallace, T, Booth H 1983 To Ride the Storm: the 1980 Bristol 'Riot' and the State. London: Heinemann Educational Books, vii + 221pp.