Congratulations to faculty members for being recognized as highly cited researchers

The following faculty members have been named this year to Clarivate Analytic’s annual list of Highly Cited Researchers—those who rank in the top 1% for citations by their peers—in one or two fields: David Cutler Miguel Hernan Ashish Jha Ichiro Kawachi Gary King S V Subramanian Learn more in this news item by the Harvard Chan School.

Controlling blood pressure at the population level is associated with large life expectancy gains in Indonesia

Harvard Bell Fellow Nikkil Sudharsanan, PhD, has authored a paper published in the International Journal of Epidemiology that reveals that population policies to control systolic blood pressure in Indonesia could result in large (5-6 year) gains in adult life expectancy for men and women across the entire wealth distribution of the country. Given that hypertension is high and rising in many low- and middle-income countries, the paper calls for more…

When is more education not necessarily better for health?

Harvard Bell Fellow Emilie Courtin, PhD, is lead author on a study published in Social Science & Medicine that reveals that when mandatory length of education among teenagers in France was raised from age 14 to 16 by a government policy, those students who were from socioeconomically disadvantaged families were later found to have higher blood pressure and white blood cell counts in adulthood. Harvard Pop Center Director Lisa Berkman and faculty…

Marcia Castro authors book chapter: MALARIA IN THE BRAZILIAN AMAZON

Harvard Pop Center faculty member Marcia Castro, PhD, has authored a chapter in the book  Water and Sanitation‐Related Diseases and the Changing Environment: Challenges, Interventions, and Preventive Measures, Second Edition. Castro examines the context of the steady rise in malaria cases in the Brazilian Amazon with the intention of shedding light on strategies to minimize the transmission of the disease.

WBUR reports: What Makes Early Education Helpful?

Faculty member Stephanie Jones, PhD, and her research teammates are studying the very early educational patterns of a cohort of 3-and 4-year-olds in Massachusetts to learn about which “micro-features” of an educational system are most helpful in setting up a child for later success. Read about the findings from the first wave of data. Their research is also profiled in this piece in The Washington Post.

Study links exposure to parental warmth during childhood with increased levels of well-being in adulthood

Harvard Pop Center faculty member Laura Kubzansky, PhD, and colleagues are authors of a longitudinal study in Social Science & Medicine that has found that those who recalled receiving parental warmth during childhood were more likely to also self report higher levels of well-being—including emotional, psychological and social—as adults. They were also less likely to engage in behaviors such as drug use and smoking. The findings point to the potential…

Tracking search terms of Google users found better at identifying source of foodborne illnesses / unsafe restaurants than complaints & routine inspections

A study published in npj Digital Medicine by faculty member Ashish K. Jha, MD, and colleagues (including Google researchers) has found that a machine-learned model can help identify a food safety breach at a restaurant or health department more quickly, before it poses a bigger public health risk. Learn more in this EurekAlert. 

India’s gender gap in mobile phone usage is fourth highest in world

According to a new Harvard Kennedy School study—with Harvard Pop Center faculty member Rohini Pande and recent Harvard Bell Fellow Natalia Rigol among its authors—men in India are 33 percentage points more likely than women to own a cell phone, on average. Learn how this imbalance can influence other forms of inequalities in this news piece on counterview.com.