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We’re hiring a Project Director for our NIA-funded flagship study HAALSI

Older woman in South Africa

Are you a research scientist with a PhD in demography, public health, epidemiology, or a related field who is interested in health and aging in a global context? The Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, in partnership with the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa, was awarded a P01 grant in 2013 from the National Institute on Aging to study the drivers and consequences of HIV and non-communicable diseases…

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Fact checking nutrition, health and development indicators in the Parliamentary Constituencies of India

Map of India's parliamentary constituencies

There are 543 Parliamentary Constituencies (PCs) in India, and these political units are key to improving human capital and development. Expanding on their own recent research, Harvard Pop Center faculty member S (Subu) V Subramanian, Research Associate Rockli Kim and their colleagues have made data tables and maps available via a website to help people visualize over one hundred critical indicators of nutrition, health and development to identify PCs that…

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HIV treatment programs linked to better cardiometabolic health indicators in South African patients

A doctor drawing blood from a woman

Researchers in the The Health and Aging in Africa: a longitudinal study of an INDEPTH Community in South Africa (HAALSI) project explored whether those people living with HIV receiving antiretroviral therapy (ART) might have better chronic disease (e.g. hypertension, diabetes) control and numbers resulting from the “cascade” of care. The results are published in JIAS.

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Are brief, population-based depression measures suitable for Black men?

Headshot of Leslie Adams

Harvard Bell Fellow Leslie Adams, PhD, is lead author on a paper published in the American Journal of Men’s Health that explores whether the commonly used psychometric scale — the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression (CES-D) — accurately assesses depression among Black men. Findings show that several items on the CES-D scale may not fully capture the gendered depression experience for this group and should be interpreted with caution in…

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Parenting style carries weight when it comes to offspring’s mid-life BMI

Image of apple, measuring tape, and a scale

A study published in Preventive Medicine has found that an authoritative parenting style (one that blends both warmth and control) is associated with healthier mid-life weight among offspring. Harvard Pop Center Director Lisa Berkman, and faculty members Ichiro Kawachi and Laura Kubzansky, are among the authors*. *Other authors include: lead author Ying Chen and Claudia Trudel-Fitzgerald.

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Persistent, intergenerational racial wealth gap clearly illustrated via animated data visualization

Graphic showcasing wealth mobility rate of white and Black children

Harvard Pop Center faculty member Sasha Killewald, and co-author Fabian T. Pfeffer have published an article in Socius that leverages animated graphics fueled by JavaScript to creatively illustrate a racial (black vs. white) wealth gap. Findings suggest that both the starting point of past generations, along with “continued institutionalized discrimination,” contribute to this inequality. The graphic is showcased in this piece published in U.S. News and World Report on economic…

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When it comes to lowering infant mortality rates in LMICs, a hopeful future may depend on looking back

Head shots of Nancy Krieger and S V Subramanian

Harvard Pop Center faculty members Nancy Krieger, PhD, and S (Subu) V Subramanian, PhD, and lead author Amiya Bhatia, a Harvard Pop Center graduate student affiliate, have authored a paper published in The Milbank Quarterly that makes the case for why low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) should take a deeper look into early 20th-century United States history for some constructive ways to lower their infant mortality rate.

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Will the lowered first-time opioid prescription rate help to reduce overdose mortality rate?

headshot of Nicole Maestas

Nicole Maestas, PhD, is lead author on a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine that reports some potentially hopeful news regarding the national opioid crisis: the first-time prescription rate is lower, as is the rate for prescriptions lasting longer than three days. Learn more in this piece on PBS NewsHour.

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Can natural disasters facilitate growth for their survivors?

Four hands grabbing each others' wrists

Findings of a study involving Hurricane Katrina survivors suggest that post-traumatic growth (PTG) was evident in five different key areas for most of the low-income survivors that participated in the study. Mary Waters, PhD, and other RISK project researchers found that factors such as racially diverse communities, improved neighborhoods, and new educational and economic opportunities were credited with facilitating this growth.