CUPC affiliates Ryan Masters and Stef Mollborn participated in “Advocacy Day” through the Population Association of America in Washington DC, late March 2016. Advocacy Day took place the day prior to the annual PAA meeting and Ryan and Stef met with staff in the offices of Senator Michale Barnett (CO), Senator Cory Gardner (CO) and Representative Diana DeGette (CO01). The conversations were designed to inform staff about population sciences in general, what population researchers are doing at CU-Boulder, and how population sciences benefit from the federal government (both directly through grants and indirectly through agencies). They also urged continued support for the agencies that support population sciences (e.g., NIH, NIA, NSF, the Census Bureau, NCHS, and other statistical and data-based agencies). The PAA specifically asked advocates to request the following: (1) support funding federal agencies related to PAA and population-based sciences in 2017, esp NIH, NSF, and Census; (2) oppose bills and amendments that are anti-behavioral science or anti-social science; and (3) oppose attempts to make the American Community Survey voluntary.
