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STILL MISSING: US racial/ethnic data for COVID-19 cases

COVID-19 virus with question marks layered on top of it

A Harvard Pop Center working paper finds that despite a federal policy that went into effect in early June requiring that racial/ethnic data be reported for all COVID-19 cases, it is still not being adequately reported. Based on publicly available data at the CDC website, close to half of the cases reported between August 28, 2020 and September 16, 2020 are still missing this key information. “These findings suggest that…

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Assessing the scale for assessing depression in rural South Africa

Two South African women wearing colorful clothes

Researchers from the Harvard Pop Center in Cambridge, MA and the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa who are affiliated with the HAALSI study have published a paper in the Journal of Affective Disorders that finds that the reliability of the commonly used scale to assess depression (Center for Epidemiologic Depression Scale (CES-D)) differed by gender. Authors of the study include: Leslie B. Adams, Meagan Farrell, Sumaya Mall,…

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COVID-19 statistics by Congressional districts across the United States

Map of Congressional Districts in U.S.

Professor of population health and geography S (Subu) V Subramanian, PhD, and his colleague Priyanka N deSouza have published a paper that presents the first estimates of COVID-19 cumulative cases, deaths and case fatality rates across the 436 policy-relevant Congressional districts in the U.S. Image: Wikimediacommons

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Aiming to ward off ‘spiral of decline’ in aging rural South African population

Older man sitting outside in rural South Africa

Researchers analyzed data collected as part of the HAALSI study to learn more about the self-reported physical activity (PA) levels of a population over 40 years old. Factors such as being male, over the age of 80, in a higher wealth category, obesity, and poorer functional capacity correlated with lower levels of physical activity. The paper is published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. “These findings…

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Welcoming our new cohort of postdoctoral fellows!

Three new postdoctoral fellows at the Harvard Pop Center

We are very pleased to welcome the three members of the 2020-2022 cohort of postdoctoral fellows at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies. Our incoming David E. Bell Fellow, Madeleine Daepp, recently completed her doctorate in the department of urban studies and planning at MIT. Her PhD research spanned public health and demography, with papers on post-disaster residential mobility, neighborhood attainment, and the effect of healthcare reform on…

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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…

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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.”

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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…

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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…

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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…

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