Middle and high school racial composition linked to misuse of non-medical prescription painkillers later in life

A study by Harvard Pop Center director Lisa Berkman, faculty members Ichiro Kawachi and Mauricio Avendano, and colleagues has revealed that both white and black students who attended majority-white schools were at higher risk of lifetime, non-medical use of prescription painkillers. Blacks who attended predominantly white schools were twice as likely to report misuse compared to blacks who attended predominantly black schools.

Are circumcised men safer sex partners? Findings from the HAALSI cohort in rural South Africa

Not necessarily, finds a study published in PLoS ONE by a team of researchers affiliated with Health and Aging in Africa: A Longitudinal Study of an INDEPTH Community in South Africa (HAALSI). Older men who were circumcised in a hospital setting (as opposed to initiation-based circumcision) had higher HIV prevalence than uncircumcised men. Former Harvard Bell Fellow and HAALSI researcher Molly Rosenberg explains in this article in the South African publication Business Day that…

A comprehensive road map for tackling risky and costly diet-related disease in the U.S.

Sara Bleich, PhD, professor of public health policy at the Harvard Chan School, has penned an op-ed in The New England Journal of Medicine that makes a strong case for an approach that is multi-prong, spanning health systems, population, individual, local, national, and private sector levels.

Eminent social scientists explore RCTs & evidence-based policy in special issue of research journal

In a special issue of the journal Social Science & Medicine, 26 social scientists comment on the usefulness of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) when it comes to evaluating health interventions. This interdisciplinary discussion—inspired by an article by Angus Deaton and Nancy Cartwright— includes articles by Harvard Pop Center faculty members, including Ichiro Kawachi, and  S V Subramanian (who, along with a colleague, authored the preface), Robert J. Sampson, and postdoctoral fellow Rockli Kim.

What is widening the racial and ethnic wealth gaps during young and middle adulthood in the United States?

Harvard Pop Center faculty member Alexandra Killewald, PhD, and Graduate Student Affiliate Brielle Bryan have authored a paper published in Social Forces that applies a life-course perspective to wealth accumulation, examining both the inherited disadvantage of previous generations, along with current inequities in factors such as education, income, marital status, and home ownership.

Study identifies congressional districts in the U.S. with higher opioid prescription rates

Harvard Pop Center postdoctoral research fellow Lyndsey Rolheiser, PhD, along with faculty member S V Subramanian, PhD, and a colleague have published a study in the American Journal of Public Health that has found higher opioid prescription rate districts in the southeast, Appalachia and the rural west. This insight into how the congressional districts rank could provide useful data to help shape public policies and targeted programs. Learn more… Harvard Public…

Are sexual minorities at a greater risk of experiencing stress?

Harvard Pop Center faculty member S. Bryn Austin, PhD, and Graduate Student Affiliate Brielle Bryan have authored a study that indicates that sexual minority women (lesbian and bisexual) physiologically experience more stress based on disparities in sympathetic nervous system biomarkers.

Informatics and electronic health records can help integrate context into health care

Social determinants of health (complex contextual factors) are considered to have a profound impact on our health, yet are not part of our health care system. Harvard Pop Center faculty member Hossein Estiri, PhD, is an author of a Perspective published in JAMIA Open that makes a case for utilizing informatics and electronic health records as a way to “…give tomorrow’s clinicians the tools and the data they need to…

Geotagged tweets used to better assess urban mobility, neighborhood isolation in 50 U.S. cities

Findings of a research study show that even though residents of black and Hispanic neighborhoods traveled outside of their home neighborhoods, they were far less exposed to nonpoor or white middle-class neighborhoods than residents of primarily white neighborhoods, suggesting that segregation persists in some of the country’s largest cities. Two authors of the study—Mario L. Small, PhD, and Robert J. Sampson, PhD—are affiliated with the Harvard Pop Center.