WBUR reports: MA home-based child care providers hit hard as a result of COVID-19

Headshot of Stephanie Jones

Harvard Pop Center faculty affiliate Stephanie Jones, PhD, the Gerald S. Lesser Professor in Early Childhood Development at Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE), and her colleagues compiled research focused on the status of families and young children in Massachusetts during the spring of 2020. The findings of this collaboration between HGSE and Abt Associates, published in Report 1 and Report 2, are elucidated in this piece of reporting by…

ENOUGH: Nancy Krieger looks back (and forward) as country grapples with convergence of multiple crises

the word ENOUGH in Gray and White big letters

Harvard Pop Center faculty affiliate Nancy Krieger, PhD, has written an editorial published in the American Journal of Public Health that sheds light on the nature of the inequities exposed by COVID-19. Krieger also shares words of inspiration and encouragement—her own, as well as those of notable historical figures—that call for us to stay strong in the fight to bring about “health justice, democratic governance, and an equitable, sustainable future.”

How much does age contribute to the wide variation in COVID-19 case fatality rates across nine countries?

Headshots of Nikkil and Till

Recent Bell Fellow Nikkil Sudharsanan, PhD, and Harvard Pop Center faculty member Till Bärnighausen, MD, PhD, ScD and their colleagues have published a study in the Annals of Internal Medicine that finds… “Selective testing and identifying of older cases considerably warps estimates of the lethality of COVID-19 within populations and comparisons across countries.” The findings suggest that in order to accurately compare how countries are able to care for patients…

Study shines light on how caregivers are faring during COVID-19

headshot of Sung Park

Our Sloan Fellow on Aging and Work Sung S. Park, PhD, has authored a paper published in The Journals of Gerontology: Series B that examines the physical and mental health of caregivers (those offering short-term and long-term care) vs. non-caregivers during the early stages of COVID-19. Findings point to caregivers, in general, faring worse than non-caregivers in terms of fatigue and mental health, with long-term caregivers suffering more physical symptoms…

In wake of COVID-19 and home quarantine, symptoms of anxiety and depression are weighing down many adults in Bangladesh

Harvard Pop Center research assistant Enryka Christopher is an author of a study published in International Journal of Environmental Health Research that finds that one-third of surveyed home-quarantined adults were suffering from symptoms of anxiety, while over one-half were experiencing symptoms of depression. “These findings warrant the consideration of easily accessible low-intensity mental health interventions during and beyond this pandemic.” Authors: Md. Hasan Al Banna, Abu Sayeed, Satyajit Kundu, Enryka…

Color-coded life expectancy: People in blue states are living longer than people in red

Map of the United State with Red and Blue States

Our former Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Society Scholar Jennifer Karas Montez, along with our associate director Jason Beckfield, and their colleagues have published a study in The Milbank Quarterly that looks at how changes in state policies since the 1970s have impacted life expectancy in the United States. Read about the study in this release… …  on alternet.org … on salon.com   Image: Wikimedia.org

Children living on edge of malnutrition in India at greater risk of “food shocks” during national lockdowns to curb COVID-19

Child in a field in India

With one out of two children in India suffering from one form of malnutrition, there are many more who are hovering just above that threshold. The findings of this paper published in the Journal of Global Health Science estimate that even a slight shock to body weight could result in a significant uptick in cases of underweight and wasting. Study authors Sunil Rajpal, William Joe, and S V Subramanian make…

When trying to receive health care for depression, discrimination does not help

Headshot of Leslie Adams

Our Bell Fellow Leslie Adams collaborated on this paper based on a qualitative component of a larger, mixed-methods, community-based participatory research study focused on understanding how health care discrimination influences depression treatment preferences. The study provides a more in-depth investigation of the implications of negative interactions in the health care sector for diverse people with lived experience of depression. The study was funded by the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute…

Learning lessons from Berkeley, CA: Analyzing roll out of nation’s first sugary beverage tax

Anna Grummon headshot

Harvard Pop Center’s Bell Fellow Anna Grummon, PhD, is an author on this study published in the American Journal of Public Health that analyzes what factors helped to facilitate (and impede) this public policy that generated more than $9 million for public health, nutrition, and health equity through 2021.