S V Subramanian

Asthma Research

S V Subramanian, an assistant professor in the Department of Society, Human Development, and Health, has received an award for more than $600,000 over five years from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute to investigate the role of community-level and neighborhood-level factors in explaining the occurrence and distribution of asthma.
Fifteen million Americans suffer from asthma. The burden of morbidity appears to be rising, with minority and low socioeconomic groups bearing a disproportionately higher burden, said Subramanian. The increasing prevalence and marked disparities in asthma remain largely unexplained by known risk factors, suggesting the potential role of community-level factors, Subramanian added.
The analysis funded by the new grant will examine the effect of neighborhood structural disadvantage, collective psychosocial characteristics, and physical environmental conditions in explaining the known disparities in the prevalence of asthma using multilevel models. This multilevel study will be carried out within three ongoing projects-Asthma Coalition on Community, Environment, and Social Stress (ACCESS); Boston Area Community Health Study (BACH); and Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN)-in Boston and Chicago.
Working with Subramanian will be Ichiro Kawachi, Stephanie Shore, and Felton Earls, all from HSPH; Rosalind Wright of the Channing Laboratory; Gary King and Robert Sampson of FAS at Harvard University; and John McKinlay of the New England Research Institutes.

Youth Violence Prevention

David Hemenway

The Harvard Youth Violence Prevention Center has received renewed funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to help reduce youth violence in Boston. Harvard is one of eight academic institutions to receive funding for the five-year program, which connects academic resources with community and city resources to study and create lasting ways to prevent youth violence. Other recipients include Columbia University, Johns Hopkins University, University of California at Berkeley, University of California at Riverside, University of Hawaii at Manoa, University of Illinois-Chicago, and Virginia Commonwealth University.

	Deborah Prothrow-Stith

The Harvard Youth Violence Prevention Center works with 11 grassroots community partners and many Boston city agencies. The center is directed by David Hemenway and Deborah Prothrow-Stith, both professors in the Department of Health Policy and Management.

National Preparedness Leadership Initiative

Leonard Marcus

The CDC has awarded a $750,000 grant to continue the National Preparedness Leadership Initiative (NPLI), established last year at HSPH and at the Kennedy School of Government. The NPLI is co-directed by David Gergen of KSG and Leonard Marcus of HSPH.
The goal of the NPLI is to produce a corps of able and responsive leaders, equipped to provide leadership on critical decisions and actions regarding terrorism preparedness and response. The effort seeks to expand "connectivity" across governmental agencies on critical national preparedness matters. The connectivity concept strives to build a seamless web of people, organizations, resources, and information that can best identify, contain, and control a terrorist attack as well as other emergencies facing the country.