#12
Date: Thu, 15 May 2003
From: Judy Twigg <jtwigg@erols.com>
Subject: Association for Study of Health and Demography in the Former Soviet Union (ASHDFSU)

Association for Study of Health and Demography in the Former Soviet Union (ASHDFSU)

Since 1994, Mark Field (Davis Center, Harvard University) has chaired a Roundtable on Health Conditions in the Former Soviet Union at each annual meeting of the AAASS. At the 2002 meeting, the organizing members of the Roundtable (Murray Feshbach, Mark Field, Dan Goldberg, Jack Kramer, David Powell, and Judy Twigg) decided the time has come to transform the Roundtable into a formal Association affiliated with AAASS.

The Association will serve as a forum for scholars and policy makers in various disciplines who are interested in health and demographic developments in the former Soviet Union. It will explore issues, research findings, and publications -- including those written by members of the Association -- dealing with the fifteen countries that emerged from the USSR. Compared to other fields of study, health and demography have been relatively neglected, receiving too little attention from Western scholars and officials, as well as from their counterparts in the Newly Independent States. This circumstance is particularly distressing given that demographic and health-related developments are critical to an understanding of the region and its future.

All individuals interested in joining the Association are invited to do so by contacting Judy Twigg of Virginia Commonwealth University at jtwigg@erols.com. Please do so by June 15, 2003 if you wish to be included as a Founding Member of the Association. All interested individuals are invited to attend the first formal meeting of the Association, to be held at the 2003 meeting of the AAASS in Toronto.