Weighing the value of crowdsourced versus official COVID-19 data in India

Face of stopwatch

A piece on natureindia.com written by researchers affiliated with the Harvard Pop Center — Weixing Zhang, Rockli Kim and S V Subramanian— highlights the importance of timely data on COVID-19 infection rates in order to slow the spread of the virus. Crowdsourced data, although not verified by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), has the advantage when it comes to speed, as it may be available up to two…

Prevalence of diabetes among subset of women in India varies by region

Indian woman

This cross-sectional study published in Journal of Diabetes & Metabolic Disorders by faculty member S V Subramanian and his colleagues Shrikant Singh and Parul Puri found that the burden of diabetes among women (ages 35-49) was higher in the southern and eastern parts of India, and was lower in central India. Read more about the study on Hindu.com and in this news post by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of…

Mothers in India who experienced neonatal death of child found to be at increased risk of additional neonatal deaths

Head shot of Subu and Rockli

Harvard Pop Center faculty member S (Subu) V Subramanian, PhD, and visiting scientist Rockli Kim, ScD, are among the authors of a study published in the JAMA Open Network that could help to identify high-risk pregnancies and potentially reduce the neonatal mortality rate in India. Read the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health website.

For policy change in India, it really may take a village

Head shot of Subu and Rockli

Researchers at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies (HCPDS) have been awarded a 2.2 million dollar grant by The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health professor of population health and geography and HCPDS faculty member S (Subu) V Subramanian, PhD, and HCPDS research associate Rockli Kim, ScD, are principal investigators (PIs) on the three-year project that aims to provide public policy makers…

Are there “missing” women patients in India? A closer look at gender discrimination in access to healthcare

Indian woman

Harvard Pop Center faculty member S V Subramanian, PhD, is among the authors of a study that reviewed outpatient data from a large referral public hospital in Delhi, India, and found that for every 1.69 male hospital visits, there was only 1 female visit. The ratio varied with distance to hospital, as well as with age. Other authors on the study include: Mudit Kapoor, Deepak Agrawal, Shamika Ravi, Ambuj Roy,…

Untangling depression and anxiety using hair samples in India

Indian woman

Harvard Pop Center Director Lisa Berkman, PhD, and her colleagues have published a study that has found a connection between higher levels of the sex hormone dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) and lower levels of depression when analyzing hair samples of over 2,000 women in rural India. Learn more about how other sex hormones, such as testosterone and progesterone, may factor into depressive and anxiety disorders. Other authors include: Andreas Walther, C. Tsao,…

Nutrition-specific interventions may not be best way to prevent stunting in India

image of an Indian woman and a small child

Child anthropometric failures — such as stunting, underweight, and wasting — were found to be more closely linked with past and current socioeconomic conditions, such as mother’s stature, BMI and education, and household wealth and air quality, than diversity of diet, Vitamin A supplementation and breastfeeding initiation. The study by Harvard Pop Center research associate Rockli Kim, faculty member S V Subramanian, and former Bell Fellow Daniel Corsi, and their…