Are Adolescent Smokers Using E-Cigarettes to Help Them Quit?

One of our RWJF Health & Society Scholars, Adam Lippert, PhD, has recently published a paper on which adolescent subgroups are using e-cigarettes and whether they are using them to help them quit smoking. The study has been published in the American Journal of Health Promotion.

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.

Harvard RWJF Alum Reanne Frank Comments on Hispanic Population Growth in Ohio Newspaper

Harvard RWJF Alum Reanne Frank is quoted in an article in The Columbus Dispatch on the growth of the Hispanic population. Frank, currently an associate professor of sociology at Ohio State University, explains that nationally Hispanic population is growing faster than non-Hispanic because more US-born Hispanics are reaching adulthood and having families, as opposed to the growth being driven by immigration.

Can friends help friends quit smoking?

According to a new study published in  Journal of Health and Social Behavior and co-authored by RWJF alum Steven Haas, adolescents tend to be more powerful in influencing their friends to start smoking than in helping them to quit. “In order to become a smoker, kids need to know how to smoke, they need to know where to buy cigarettes and how to smoke without being caught, which are all things they…

Debt hurts more than just your credit rating

A recent study led by former RWJF scholar Elizabeth Sweet found that high student debt leads to a greater incidence of high blood pressure and depression in people ages 24-32. The study was featured in both Time and Forbes. With regard to cultural messages regarding an individual’s responsibility for debt, Sweet pointed out that debt, while often impossible to avoid, is stigmatized by our society. “[Debt] is going to be a way of…

No Link Found Between Omega-3 Fatty Acids Intake and Lowered Risk of Suicide

Harvard Pop Center affiliated researchers Ichiro Kawachi, MD, PhD, and former RWJF scholar Alexander Tsai, MD, PhD, are authors of a large study that examined the link between fatty acid intake and suicide, which sets it apart from the majority of similar studies of its size which focused more on just depression.

RWJF Alums study how marathon bombings impact adolescent mental health

Last Spring, RWJF alums Katie McLaughlin and Margaret Sheridan were in the middle of a study on trauma that, like so many of its kind, relied upon artificial situations created in a lab. But in the middle of this study, a real-life trauma occurred: the marathon bombing. As McLaughlin told New England Public Radio, this provided a unique opportunity to look at how children and adolescents who had experienced previous trauma…