WorldPop director, Professor Andy Tatem recently spoke at the Indian High Commission in London at an India-UK Education Collaboration event. Presenting WorldPop’s impactful work in India, he highlighted the challenges of nations large, densely packed, and diverse population, and explained why detailed, current small-area population data are crucial for election planning, GDP calculation, disaster preparedness, and health system planning. He outlined our methodology, which involves integrating diverse data sources like satellite imagery, nightlights, and social media mobility patterns to create reliable and inclusive spatial demographic data.
WorldPop aims to empower decision-makers by providing reliable population insights, and contribute to a world where everyone is counted in critical decision-making processes. Recent India-related work includes, mapping child and maternal health progress indicators1, 2, mobility changes during COVID-193, and population distribution estimates up to 20304. A new WorldPop project, FuturePop, is currently working to produce estimates to the end of the century5.
View Professor Tatem’s presentation slides and listen to the audio summary below.
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We’re trialling the ‘Deep Dive’ audio summary feature of Google’s NotebookLM. This feature uses AI to create a podcast-like audio conversation between two AI-derived hosts that summarise key points of a document - in this case the Disappearing People article in Science.
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Music: My Guitar, Lowtone Music, Free Music Archive (CC BY-NC-ND)
References
- A subnational reproductive, maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health and development atlas of India. (Nature [Scientific data])Â
- Child and Maternal Heath Progress Map (India)Â
- Comparing lagged impacts of mobility changes and environmental factors on COVID-19 waves in rural and urban India (PLoS Global Public Health)
- Beta Test Our New Global Population Data – 2015 to 2030
- FuturePop: Constructing high spatial resolution population projections and supporting the provision, access and updates of WorldPop spatial demographic datasets
Image
- Professor Andy Tatem speaking at the High Commission of India in London (HCIL), 10 July 2025 (source: HCIL).
