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Researchers from the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science celebrated a successful British Society for Population Studies (BSPS) 2026 Conference at the University of Kent in Canterbury, with LCDS researchers receiving two poster prizes and Centre members contributing research across health, mortality, fertility, mental health, migration, digital demography and population methods.
The British Society for Population Studies 2026 Conference, held from 8–10 September at the University of Kent, brought together researchers working across population and demographic research. LCDS researchers and collaborators contributed throughout the programme, reflecting the Centre’s interdisciplinary approach to understanding population change.
Two poster prizes for LCDS research
LCDS researchers swept the poster prizes at this year’s conference, with two research projects recognised for their contributions to population science.
- Dr Mary Roberts, Dr Jesús-Daniel Zazueta-Borboa and Professor Jennifer Dowd received a poster prize for their research “Kidney Mortality is Rising Across Mexico, But Not Equally.”
- Rachel Ganly also received a poster prize for her research “Sustained Tobacco Tax Rises – Narrowing Inequalities in Smoking During Pregnancy.”
The two awards highlight the breadth of research across LCDS, from population health and mortality to health inequalities and policy-related demographic questions.
LCDS research across the conference programme
LCDS researchers also contributed presentations across a wide range of conference sessions.
- Dr Wen Su contributed to research on mortality and migration, including “International migrants and national level changes in life expectancy: Evidence from Sweden” and “UK trends in cardiovascular disease risk factors,” alongside Mary K. Roberts, Jennifer Dowd and Jesús-Daniel Zazueta-Borboa. She also contributed to “Not too many options. How age-at-death distributions shape life expectancy levels over time?”
- Dr Ursula Gazeley presented research on violence and population health in “Uncovering the burden of fatal and non-fatal violence against women in Mexico: years of life lost and years lived with violence,” with Jesús-Daniel Zazueta-Borboa, Maria Gargiulo and José Manuel Aburto.
- Dr Andrea Tilstra contributed research across population health and family demography, including “Microbial signatures of disease: Classifying diabetes with microbiome data in a US cohort,” “The stratification of mental health penalties for parenthood,” and “Can health lifestyles explain the marriage benefit?”
- Dr Sander Wagner presented “The stratification of mental health penalties for parenthood,” alongside Pascal Achard, Andrea Tilstra and Mark Verhagen.
- Professor Ridhi Kashyap contributed to sessions on family change and novel demographic data and methods, presenting “The family diversity perspective: Demographic change, normativity, and parenthood among women in same-sex couples” and “Age-disaggregated subnational patterns of internet and mobile phone adoption.”
- Professor Jakub Bijak contributed research on demographic forecasting and migration, including “Probabilistic forecasts of English kinship networks: Comparisons, validation, and evaluation” and “Dynamic count models with flexible innovation processes for irregular maritime migration.”
Together, these contributions demonstrate the breadth of research being undertaken across LCDS, spanning demographic theory, population health, inequality, migration, family change, digital data and computational methods.
The Centre warmly congratulates Mary Roberts, Jesús-Daniel Zazueta-Borboa, Jennifer Dowd and Rachel Ganly on their poster prizes as well as all LCDS researchers and collaborators who contributed to BSPS 2026.
