We work with policymakers, researchers, and civil society actors to identify and inform policy solutions based on data and evidence. Our team offers nonpartisan expertise and innovative, cost-effective approaches to analysis, information sharing, policy communication, and capacity building. By sharing our knowledge and resources, we support our partners’ efforts to strengthen their sustainability and autonomy.
Since the 1980s, we have trained researchers to communicate data and evidence to policy decisionmakers and stakeholders through our Policy Communication Fellows and U.S. Policy Communication Training programs. Held annually, the programs are open to doctoral students focused on population issues, including reproductive health, population dynamics, maternal and child health, and connections between population, health, and the environment. As part of the programs, we also partner with local institutions and researchers to provide important local context and insights on policy communication. The Fellows program is funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development and the U.S. training program is funded by the National Institutes of Health.
PRB has worked with the U.S. Census Bureau since 2012 to increase knowledge and use of American Community Survey (ACS) data. The nationwide ACS provides U.S. states, congressional districts, counties, cities, and communities with reliable and timely social, economic, housing, and demographic data every year. Through this partnership, we established and maintain an ACS Data Users Group and Online Community. The Online Community has more than 2,000 members and provides a user-friendly platform for ACS data users across the country to pose and answer questions, and share information, applications, programs, and data files. Through the establishment of a Data Products Redesign Group, comprised of ACS and decennial census data users, we help support an efficient and effective means to collect informal feedback about new ACS and 2020 Census data products and distribution channels.
We provided key assistance to the African Union Commission (AUC) to advance its 2017 policy theme of investing in youth to achieve a demographic dividend. The dividend is an economic bonus that can result from a change in the age structure. PRB’s support, funded by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, included partnering with the Commission’s Youth Division to hold a workshop that helped 13 young African media professionals understand that, with the right investments, Africa’s youth bulge could provide the fuel needed to achieve the demographic dividend. The window for such a dividend opens when a nation’s fertility rate declines and working-age adults outnumber dependent-age children. The workshop impressed upon the journalists that the dividend requires timely investments to ensure that today’s youth become tomorrow’s productive adults—a message they could use to inform young people about the demographic dividend.
For the first time in its 30-year history, our popular Policy Communication Fellows Summer Institute took place outside of the United States. Doctoral students from seven nations travelled to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, to attend the program, which equips young researchers and family planning experts to become champions by developing skills to communicate evidence to policy audiences. We partnered with Amref Health Africa’s Advocacy Accelerator, who hosted us at their Tanzania campus and played an important role in bringing local field experts in policy communication to the workshop to speak about their experiences using evidence to compel policy action. This new partnership is part of a broader, continuing effort by PRB to expand the Fellow program’s impact by increasing its relevance for trainees and strengthening the role of local partners.
PRB has worked in partnership with the U.S. Census Bureau since 2012 to increase knowledge and use of American Community Survey (ACS) data. The nationwide ACS provides U.S. states, congressional districts, counties, cities, and communities with reliable and timely social, economic, housing, and demographic data every year. Through this partnership, PRB established and maintains an ACS Data Users Group and Online Community. The Online Community has more than 2,000 members and provides a user-friendly platform for ACS data users across the country to pose and answer questions, and share information, applications, programs, and data files. Through the establishment of a Data Products Redesign Group, comprised of ACS and decennial census data users, we help support an efficient and effective means to collect informal feedback about new ACS and 2020 Census data products and distribution channels.
PRB provided key assistance to the African Union Commission (AUC) to advance its 2017 policy theme of investing in youth to achieve a demographic dividend. The dividend is an economic bonus that can result from a change in the age structure. PRB’s support, funded by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, included partnering with the Commission’s Youth Division to hold a workshop that helped 13 young African media professionals understand that, with the right investments, Africa’s youth bulge could provide the fuel needed to achieve the demographic dividend. The window for such a dividend opens when a nation’s fertility rate declines and working-age adults outnumber dependent-age children. The workshop impressed upon the journalists that the dividend requires timely investments to ensure that today’s youth become tomorrow’s productive adults—a message they could use to inform young people about the demographic dividend.