PGDA study examines the role of chess performance on cognition

Image of brain with chess pieces inside

The Program on Global Demography of Aging at Harvard (PGDA) has launched a study examining the role of chess performance on cognitive ability. The Chess Cognition Study is led by PI David Canning. The study is currently looking for volunteers to complete a virtual interview, which includes a series of cognition tests. Participants must be at least 50 years of age, a member of the United States Chess Federation (USCF), and…

First study to map child undernutrition in India by village shows greatest variation at these micro levels

Screenshot of website dashboard for villages in India

A study published in PNAS by Harvard Pop Center Visiting Scientist Rockli Kim, ScD, faculty member S V Subramanian, PhD, and colleagues that utilizes “state-of-the-art data science techniques” to map and predict child undernutrition across the nearly 600,000 villages in India now provides governments at the most local level with this critical information about their constituents. To learn more about the potential value of such breakthrough, precision mapping, read the…

Krieger et. al. call for medical journals to publish more empirical studies on racism and health

Head shot of Nancy Krieger

In this analysis published in Health Affairs, Nancy Krieger, professor of social epidemiology,  and her colleagues take a look back at how many times the word “racism” appears in a search of scientific literature published over the last three decades by four of the world’s leading medical journals. The authors have also authored this piece published in Time Magazine that introduces the findings of their study to a wide and…

Geographic Insights Lab rolls out two new interactive dashboards: one for tracking NFHS data in India, the other for COVID-19 vaccination by U.S. congressional district

Geographic Insights Lab Logo

The National Family and Health Survey (NFHS) provides critical data on India’s health, nutrition, and population indicators. The Government of India utilizes many of these indicators to formulate policies and track its progress. The team at Geographic Insights Lab presents an interactive dashboard that systematically allows multiple stakeholders to compare 55 indicators for 300+ districts in India.  These indicators can also be compared across 300+ Parliamentary Constituencies in India with…

Honing messages about potential harms to health from sugary drinks

Head shot of Anna Grummon

Harvard Bell Fellow Anna Grummon, PhD, is an author on this study published in Appetite that looks at which “health harms” participants (a group of over 1,000 parents in the U.S.) were most aware of, and which ones most discouraged them from buying sugary drinks. “These findings suggest health messages focused on a variety of health harms could raise awareness and discourage sugary drink purchases.”

The dangers of ignoring the other epidemic during the COVID-19 pandemic

Heavy set woman sitting on a bench

Jason Block contributes his public health expertise to this op-ed in The Washington Post on the acute (and chronic) risks of ignoring the obesity issue in the U.S. “The reason obesity is so stigmatized is that people think of weight as a choice . . . It’s especially unfair when we have a society that makes opportunities to gain weight so ubiquitous.”

How are changes in working status due to COVID-19 impacting the mental health of those Americans close to retirement age?

Head shot of Leah Abrams

Harvard Pop Center’s Sloan Fellow on Aging and Work Leah Abrams, PhD, and recent Harvard Bell Fellow Lindsay Kobayashi, PhD, along with a colleague, have published their findings which reveal that workers who lost their jobs (more commonly associated with those who were under age 65 and those with less than a college degree), were furloughed, or experienced a reduction in hours suffered from increased loneliness and depressive symptoms, whereas…

If this is to be the “Decade of Healthy Ageing,” treatments and support for Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRDs) need to scale up now

Illustration of profile of a person's head with puzzle pieces

The United Nations has declared that we are now in the “UN Decade of Healthy Ageing” (2021-2030) as a way to address the challenges that accompany increasing global life expectancy. Two researchers affiliated with the Harvard Pop Center (David Bloom and Benjamin Seligman) are among the authors of this piece published on voxeu.org that cites the rapidly developed COVID-19 vaccine as proof that complex health crises can be successfully tackled.…

Older adults in rural South Africa who care for their grandchildren may also be safeguarding their cognitive function

Two older women walk on a dirt road in rural South Africa

Three researchers (Harvard Pop Center Research Scientist Elyse Jennings, Research Associate Director Meagan Farrell, and former Bell Fellow Lindsay Kobayashi) affiliated with one of the flagship projects at the Harvard Pop Center — Health and Aging in Africa: A Longitudinal Study of an INDEPTH Community in South Africa (HAALSI) — have published their findings in the Journal of Aging and Health.