Latest study on aging in South Africa presents some of the first incidence rates of aging-related cognitive impairment in this population

An older South African man and a healthcare worker do an intake sitting outside in rural South Africa

HAALSI researchers — including former Harvard Bell Fellow Lindsay Kobayashi, and Harvard Pop Center Research Associate Meagan Farrell, and Director Lisa Berkman — have published a study that finds similar patterning between social disparities (such as differences in formal education, literacy and marital status) and cognitive impairment rates in rural South Africa as observed in many high-income countries.

Combatting mental distress by shoring up resilience during COVID-19 pandemic

Headshot of Leslie Adams

A study published in the Journal of Affective Disorders by our recent Bell Fellow Leslie Adams, PhD, and her colleagues takes a longitudinal look (with baseline and nine waves of follow-up data from March through August, 2020) at the relationship between resilience and mental distress in 6,008 participants in the Understanding America Study. “Adults living below the poverty line were less likely to report high resilience . . . participants…

Why is the proportion of deaths from COVID-19 in nursing homes far less in Japan than in U.S.?

Head shot of Ichiro Kawachi

Ichiro Kawachi, MBChB, PhD, and his colleague Kazuhiro Abe, MD, PhD have written an op-ed in JAMA Health Forum that suggests that differences in standards of care and financing may be partially responsible for what appears to be differing infection rates between nursing homes in Japan and the U.S.

Finally, a look at COVID-19 mortality rates by race/ethnicity AND EDUCATIONAL LEVEL

Graphs showing COVID-19 mortality rate in U.S. by race/ethnicity and age

“Intersectional inequities in COVID-19 mortality by race/ethnicity and education in the United States, January 1, 2020–January 31, 2021,” is the latest Harvard Pop Center working paper by Jarvis Chen, Christian Testa, Pamela Waterman, and Nancy Krieger. On February 2, the US National Center for Health Statistics published data relating to COVID-19 deaths that had been missing from the government health statistics for the first year of the pandemic under the…

Analyzing electronic health records can be a fast and accurate way to predict risk of death from COVID-19

Head shot of Estiri_Hossein

Hossein Estiri, PhD, is lead author on a study that utilized artificial intelligence to leverage the data compiled in electronic health records to compute individual-level risk scores for death after a COVID-19 infection. Among those predictors at the top of the list for those between the ages of 45-65 were age, history of pneumonia, diabetes (with complications), and cancer (breast and prostate). Learn more about the findings of this study…

It’s “Groundhog Day,” AGAIN! Nearly one-half of COVID-19 vaccination data is missing race/ethnicity info., reminiscent of earlier gaps in COVID-19 case and mortality data

Collage with COVID-19 vaccines, race and ethnicity form with a question mark

A Harvard Pop Center working paper points out that the Morbidity and Mortality report by the US Centers for Disease Control released on February 2 (which happened to be Groundhog Day) is missing race and ethnicity information for nearly half of the people who were vaccinated during the first month of the roll out. Age and gender information were missing from only .1% and 3% respectively. The paper calls for…