Scholars@Duke
M. Giovanna Merli

M. Giovanna Merli

Professor in the Sanford School of Public Policy
Sanford School of Public Policy
giovanna.merli@duke.edu
Box 90312, Durham, NC 27708-0312
236 Rubenstein Hall, Durham, NC 27708

Selected Publications

Studying Chinese immigrants’ spatial distribution in the Raleigh–Durham area by linking survey and commercial data using romanized names

Journal Article Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A: Statistics in Society · October 23, 2024 AbstractMany population surveys do not provide information on respondents’ residential addresses, instead offering coarse geographies like zip code or higher aggregations. However, fine resolution geography ... Full text Cite

Insertion et entre-soi : l’immigration chinoise est diverse

Journal Article Population & Sociétés · May 28, 2024 La population immigrée de la France compte aujourd’hui moins de 2 % d’immigrés d’origine chinoise, soit environ 116 000 personnes, qui résident aux deux-tiers en Île-de-France. Les migrants économiques sont plus âgés et moins diplômés que les immig ... Full text Cite

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on network dynamics among Chinese immigrants in the United States

Journal Article International Migration · January 1, 2024 We use longitudinal data on the social networks of Chinese immigrants in the United States from 2018 to 2020 to study the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on communication frequency and friendship formation. Understanding the pandemic's effect on social net ... Full text Cite

Demography's Changing Intellectual Landscape: A Bibliometric Analysis of the Leading Anglophone Journals, 1950-2020.

Journal Article Demography · June 2023 Much of what we know about the intellectual landscape of anglophone demography comes from two sources: subjective narratives authored by leaders in the field, whose reviews and observations are derived from their research experience and field-specific know ... Full text Cite

The impact of two types of COVID-19-related discrimination and contemporaneous stressors on Chinese immigrants in the US South.

Journal Article SSM. Mental health · December 2022 The global rise of the COVID-19 pandemic has been accompanied by an increase in anti-Asian discrimination with potentially deleterious effects on individuals of Asian descent. In the present study, we examine how two types of COVID-19-related anti-Asian di ... Full text Open Access Cite

Using Social Networks to Sample Migrants and Study the Complexity of Contemporary Immigration: An Evaluation Study.

Journal Article Demography · June 2022 We test the effectiveness of a link-tracing sampling approach-network sampling with memory (NSM)-to recruit samples of rare immigrant populations with an application among Chinese immigrants in the Raleigh-Durham area of North Carolina. NSM uses the popula ... Full text Cite

Using Electronic Health Records to understand the population of local children captured in a large health system in Durham County, NC, USA, and implications for population health research.

Journal Article Soc Sci Med · March 2022 Although local policies aimed at reducing childhood health inequities can benefit from local data, sample size constraints in population representative health surveys often prevent rigorous evaluations of child health disparities and health care patterns a ... Full text Link to item Cite

Understanding Bachelorhood in Poverty-stricken and High Sex Ratio Settings: An Exploratory Study in Rural Shaanxi, China.

Journal Article The China quarterly · December 2019 Coupled with the social practice of female hypergamy, the male surplus within the never-married population means that today's Chinese marriage market is extremely tight in particular for men from a rural background and the least privileged socio-economic c ... Full text Cite

Sampling Migrants from their Social Networks: The Demography and Social Organization of Chinese Migrants in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

Journal Article Migration studies · July 2016 The streams of Chinese migration to Africa are growing in tandem with rising Chinese investments and trade flows in and to the African continent. In spite of the high profile of this phenomenon in the media, there are few rich and broad descriptions of Chi ... Full text Open Access Cite

Brief Report: Respondent-driven Sampling Estimators Under Real and Theoretical Recruitment Conditions of Female Sex Workers in China.

Journal Article Epidemiology · September 2015 We compare the performance of multiple respondent-driven sampling estimators under different sample recruitment conditions in hidden populations of female sex workers in the midst of China's ongoing epidemic of sexually transmitted infections. We first exa ... Full text Link to item Cite

Challenges to recruiting population representative samples of female sex workers in China using Respondent Driven Sampling.

Journal Article Social science & medicine (1982) · April 2014 We explore the network coverage of a sample of female sex workers (FSWs) in China recruited through Respondent Drive Sampling (RDS) as part of an effort to evaluate the claim of RDS of population representation with empirical data. We take advantage of uni ... Full text Cite

An increasing socioeconomic gap in childhood overweight and obesity in China.

Journal Article Am J Public Health · January 2014 We used a new conceptual framework that integrates tenets from health economics, social epidemiology, and health behavior to analyze the impact of socioeconomic forces on the temporal changes in the socioeconomic status (SES) gap in childhood overweight an ... Full text Link to item Cite

Stickiness of respondent-driven sampling recruitment chains.

Journal Article Network science (Cambridge University Press) · January 2014 Full text Open Access Cite

Job mobility and extramarital sex in reform-era Urban China

Journal Article Chinese Sociological Review · October 1, 2013 The rise of extramarital sex in China is often portrayed as a consequence of a normative shift, that is, the diversification of family and related values that has accompanied the country's move toward a less ideologically controlled society. We argue that ... Full text Cite

An Empirical Analysis of the Impact of Recruitment Patterns on RDS Estimates among a Socially Ordered Population of Female Sex Workers in China.

Journal Article Sociological methods & research · August 2013 Respondent-driven sampling (RDS) is a method for recruiting "hidden" populations through a network-based, chain and peer referral process. RDS recruits hidden populations more effectively than other sampling methods and promises to generate unbiased estima ... Full text Cite

A comparison of respondent-driven and venue-based sampling of female sex workers in Liuzhou, China.

Journal Article Sexually transmitted infections · December 2012 ObjectivesTo compare two methods for sampling female sex workers (FSWs) for bio-behavioural surveillance. We compared the populations of sex workers recruited by the venue-based Priorities for Local AIDS Control Efforts (PLACE) method and a concur ... Full text Cite

Systematic differences in risk behaviors and syphilis prevalence across types of female sex workers: a preliminary study in Liuzhou, China.

Journal Article Sexually transmitted diseases · March 2012 BackgroundFemale sex workers (FSWs) have become one of the key populations for HIV/STI control in China. Categorization of FSWs can help prioritize HIV/STI intervention efforts. We examined 2 possible categorizations of FSWs and the relationship w ... Full text Cite

Les préférences de fécondité à Shanghai dans un contexte de basse fécondité

Journal Article Population · 2011 China has joined the group of low-fertility countries; it has a total fertility rate somewhere in the range of 1.4 to 1.6. Much speculation about China’s future fertility depends on whether individual’s fertility intentions and preferences are ... Cite

Below replacement fertility preferences in Shanghai.

Journal Article Population · January 2011 China has joined the group of low-fertility countries; it has a TFR somewhere in the range of 1.4 to 1.6. Much speculation about China's future fertility depends on whether individual's fertility intentions and preferences are much higher than the state's ... Full text Cite

Factors associated with sexually transmitted disease infection among female sex workers in Shanghai, China

Journal Article Zhongguo Gonggong Weisheng Zazhi (Chinese Journal of Public Health) · 2010 Cite

Migration and Gender in China’s HIV/AIDS Epidemic

Chapter · January 1, 2009 China today is considered to be a low HIV prevalence country. In 2007 there were an estimated 700,000 HIV cases corresponding to 0.1% of the adult population. HIV infections tend to be concentrated in relatively well-defined population subgroups, such as i ... Full text Cite

Governing China's Population: From Leninist to Neoliberal Biopolitics

Journal Article Contemporary Sociology: A Journal of Reviews · March 2007 Full text Cite

Modelling the spread of HIV/AIDS in China: the role of sexual transmission.

Journal Article Population studies · March 2006 The study presented here is an exploration of the implications of patterns of sexual behaviour for the spread of HIV in China, using a bio-behavioural macrosimulation model. To reflect the uncertainty surrounding key parameters, analyses of varied scenario ... Full text Cite

The past, present and future of China’s birth planning policy

Journal Article Il Politico.Rivista Italiana di Scienze Politiche (Italian Journal of Political Sciences) · 2006 Cite

Adaptation of a political bureaucracy to economic and institutional change under socialism: The Chinese state family planning system

Journal Article Politics and Society · June 1, 2004 In China, the transformation from a centrally planned economy to one dominated by market forces has been characterized by the devolution of authority from the center (Beijing) to localities. This is as true of the enormous stale bureaucracy associated with ... Full text Cite

Has the Chinese family planning policy been successful in changing fertility preferences?

Journal Article Demography · August 2002 Has China's strict one-child policy been successful in changing fertility preferences? Using linked data from surveys conducted in four counties of northern China in 1991 and 1994, we compare reproductive behavior against prior fertility preferences and sh ... Full text Cite

Are births underreported in rural China? Manipulation of statistical records in response to China's population policies.

Journal Article Demography · February 2000 Under the current family planning policy in China, the criterion for evaluating all parties involved in the birth planning system provides an incentive for everyone to see that the policy is met, either in reality through strict enforcement of family plann ... Full text Cite

Socioeconomic background and war mortality during Vietnam's wars.

Journal Article Demography · February 2000 To understand the experience of North Vietnamese soldiers and civilians during the American war, I explore the paths leading Vietnamese men into battle by considering the relationship between socioeconomic status and war mortality. I use data obtained from ... Full text Cite

Mortality in Vietnam, 1979-1989.

Journal Article Demography · August 1998 Little is known about past and present mortality in Vietnam, as the first official data on mortality have only recently become available from censuses taken in 1979 and 1989. Using these data, I estimate Vietnamese mortality during the intercensal period u ... Full text Cite

Underreporting of births and infant deaths in rural China: evidence from field research in one county of northern China

Journal Article China Quarterly · January 1, 1998 This is a study of two parallel but distinct data collection systems in Ciqixian, a mostly rural district of Zibo city in Shandong province: the family planning demographic and contraceptive surveillance system and the registers maintained by the health sy ... Full text Cite

Implementation of a demographic and contraceptive surveillance system in four counties in north China

Journal Article Population Research and Policy Review · January 1, 1997 This paper details efforts to implement a demographic and contraceptive surveillance system in four counties in North China. These counties are taking part in a large-scale field experiment involving the introduction of new contraceptives, greater choice i ... Full text Cite