Focusing on BMI: A novel study to better understand variations in individual health within a given population

Harvard Pop Center research fellow Rockli Kim, ScD, is lead author on a study published in the European Journal of Epidemiology that aims to help reduce health disparities by comprehensively examining individual heterogeneity in women’s BMI using data  from 57 low- and middle-income countries.

Children who are physically abused or witness domestic violence at increased risk of higher BMI as adolescents

Harvard Robert Wood Johnson Health & Society Program alumnae Margaret Sheridan, PhD,  and Katie McLaughlin, PhD, are co-authors on a study in Child Abuse & Neglect that finds that children who witnessed domestic violence had almost six times the odds of being overweight or obese as adolescents.

Are socioeconomic & demographic factors driving inequalities in BMI at the population level? Maybe not.

Harvard Bell Fellow Fahad Razak, MD, Pop Center faculty member S V Subramanian (Subu), PhD, and Pop Center doctoral student Aditi Krishna are authors of a study in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition that explores population-level changes in the BMI distribution over time, looking carefully at inequalities in weight gain between groups vs. within groups (interindividual). The findings suggest that future research should focus on understanding factors driving inequalities…