Analysis streamlines measurement of physiological ‘wear and tear’

Tables of biomarkers from study

The measurement of allostatic load (cumulative biological dysregulation related to life course stressors) varies widely across studies, making it difficult to rely on the measurement to help predict mortality. An analysis published in Psychoneuroendocrinology has pinpointed five biomarkers that predict mortality as accurately as more elaborate batteries of tests, enabling the researchers, including Harvard Pop Center Director Lisa Berkman, to offer recommendations for more efficient biomarker collection in future allostatic…

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…

The Impact of Childhood Social Disadvantage

How does social disadvantage in childhood correlate to cardiometabolic function and chronic disease status 40 years down the line? RWJF alumna Amy Non, along with Pop Center faculty members Ichiro Kawachi, Matthew Gilman, and Laura Kubzansky, take a look at how adverse social environments in early life play out across the life course. The study has been published in the American Journal of Epidemiology.