Voting Rights Act linked with reduction in Black infant deaths in Jim Crow states

Mother with a Black infant

HCPDS Graduate Student Affiliate Tamara Rushovich, along with faculty member Nancy Krieger and their colleagues have published a study in the American Journal of Public Health that investigates the impact of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 on Black and Black vs. White infant deaths in Jim Crow states. Photo by Barbara Verge on Unsplash 

Three “Conversations” that tell the story of health and aging in rural South Africa

HAALSA letters with South African images behind them

Physicians, professors and research scientists affiliated with Health and Aging in Africa: Longitudinal Studies in South Africa (HAALSA)—the ten-year (and counting) project that has been following a cohort that started as 5,000 men and women aged 40 and over—have penned three pieces in The Conversation that delve into unique aspects of this burgeoning population: Pioneering researchers Stephen Tollman and Kathleen Kahn from the University of the Witwatersrand reflect back on…

How can socioeconomic-based cardiovascular disease disparities in low- and middle-income countries be reduced?

A study published in Nature Medicine by HCPDS graduate student affiliate Dorit Stein, and other HCPDS affiliates including Till Bärnighausen, Maja Marcus, Jennifer Manne-Goehler, Nikkil Sudharsanan, and Stephane Verguet (along with their colleagues) simulates that improvements in hypertension management has greater impact “among bottom wealth quintiles in middle-income countries and in countries with larger baseline disparities in hypertension management.”

Study links changes in work environment with reduced risk of cardiovascular disease among most at-risk employees

Graph showing greater protection of risk for those at higher cardiometabolic risk

A reduction in stressful conditions at work has now been linked to a reduction in cardiovascular disease (CVD) among those employees who were at an elevated risk of CVD at the start of the intervention study, especially if they were older workers. Researchers affiliated with The Work, Family & Health Network Study deployed interventions at two different types of works sites (IT and long-term care) designed to increase work-life balance…

What’s to blame for the lagging U.S life expectancy? A closer look at mid-life ‘deaths of despair’ and retirement-age chronic disease

Head shot of Leah Abrams

Recent Sloan Fellow on Aging and Work Leah Abrams, PhD, is lead author on A Brief Report published in PNAS Demography that explores what could be driving the troubling status of U.S. life expectancy which has been stagnating since 2010. Abrams and her colleagues find chronic disease at the time of retirement to be a bigger factor than the ‘deaths of despair’ (drug overdose, alcohol abuse, and suicide) that have…

Comment: “Prosociality should be a public health priority”

Head shot of Laura Kubzansky from 2023

With poignant lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic fresh in our minds, faculty member Laura Kubzansky, PhD, corresponding author on a Comment published in Nature Human Behavior, makes a strong case for why prosociality (defined as positive other-regarding behaviors and beliefs) should be more deeply explored—with a sense of urgency—as part of an ‘asset-based’ approach to address the rising rates of hopelessness, despair, and poor mental health in the U.S.

How does level of educational attainment relate to discrepancies in the reporting of contraception use by spouses in rural Nepal?

Head shot of Elyse Jennings

HCPDS Research Scientist Elyse Jennings, PhD, has co-authored a paper published in Studies in Family Planning that examines the data that from monthly reporting by both spouses of 822 couples in rural Nepal between 2008 and 2016. Findings reveal that there is an association between educational attainment and discrepancies in reporting. “These findings offer important new insights into spousal dynamics that may influence transparency regarding contraceptive use.”

Study evaluating telomeres finds aging- and health-related biomarkers in low-income country to be similar to those found in high-income countries

HAALSI letters with images from project

Scientists affiliated with Health and Aging in Africa: A Longitudinal Study in South Africa (HAALSI) have found that telomere length is associated with health and aging biomarkers (e.g., age, mortality, blood pressure) in much the same way that they are associated with these biomarkers in more frequently studied high-income countries.

TIAA Institute Insights Report: “Policy solutions that implicitly expect almost everyone to delay retirement will leave many Americans behind”

Overtime book cover and TIAA Institute logo

Lisa F. Berkman, PhD, and Beth C. Truesdale, PhD, have published a TIAA Institute Insights Report that pulls from book that they co-edited, “Overtime: America’s Aging Workforce and the Future of Working Longer,” to help answer the question: “Should women just delay retirement and work longer?” The report is part of the TIAA Institute’s Women’s Voices of Expertise & Experience: Insights to Help Retire Inequality series.

Caregiving responsibilities at home may impact working mothers’ intentions to expand family

Woman cooking in kitchen

A study published in the European Sociological Review by former HCPDS Graduate Student Affiliate Sinn Won Han, current HCPDS Graduate Student Affiliate Ohjae Gowen, and HCPDS faculty member Mary Brinton expands recent research that shows an increase in both female labor force participation and fertility rates (a change signaling possible greater gender equality within the household) by looking at the impact of the persistent “gender-role ideology” that continues to prioritize…