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Using a machine learning approach to shed light on relationship between SES and women’s height

Photos of Adel Daoud, Rockli Kim and S V Subramanian

Even though height is commonly correlated with socioeconomic status (SES), SES is not known as a reliable predictor of height. In this study, Harvard Pop Center Bell Fellow Adel Daoud, Research Associate Rockli Kim, and faculty member S (Subu) V Subramanian utilized machine learning algorithms to assess whether there were non-linear patterns in the data that might shed more light on the relationship between height and socio-economic status.

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What explains difference in heart rate recovery among those of varying levels of socioeconomic status?

Harvard Pop Center Director Lisa Berkman and colleagues, including recent visiting scientist Cathal McCrory, are authors on a paper published in The Journals of Gerontology Series A that links higher levels of educational attainment with better heart rate recovery, which is an important biomarker of cardiovascular health and predictor of mortality. Lifetime smoking was found to play a significant role in explaining some of the differences between the educational levels.

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Does timing of socioeconomic status (SES) impact late-life memory function and decline differently?

Researchers have found that early- and later-life SES has an impact on late-life memory in differing ways. The study is published in the American Journal of Epidemiology by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health doctoral student Jessica Marden, along with Harvard Pop Center faculty members Ichiro Kawachi and M. Maria Glymour.

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Does socioeconomic status matter more to Santa than whether you’ve been “naughty” or “nice”?

Harvard Pop Center faculty member S (“Subu”) V Subramanian, PhD, is author on a paper in the Christmas edition of The BMJ that explores which factors influence a visit from Santa Claus in pediatric wards in hospitals on Christmas Day. Learn more in this news post from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

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By honing in on top 5 risk factors for child undernutrition in India, findings could lead to more effective interventions

Harvard Pop Center affiliated researchers including recent Bell Fellow Daniel Corsi, PhD,  research associate Iván Mejía-Guevara, PhD,  and faculty and executive committee member SV Subramanian (Subu), PhD, have published a study in Social Science & Medicine that has evaluated the contribution of 15 common risk factors for chronic child undernutrition in India. The findings point to five risk factors responsible for more than 65% of the problem. Learn more in…

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Can education help reduce adulthood health risks for those who were socioeconomically disadvantaged as children?

Harvard Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Society Scholar alum Esther Friedman, PhD, is lead author on a study published in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine that found that while adults who experienced childhood socioeconomic adversity had markers associated with increased health risks, their health risks were greatly reduced by adult education. The study also included those who experienced childhood physical abuse; the physiological consequences of this type of early-life adversity did…

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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…

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Study finds poverty & social isolation put older men at increased risk for higher resting heart rate, a known risk factor for CVD

Visiting Scientist Cathal McCrory, PhD, is lead author on a paper published in The Journals of Gerontology: Series B that examines the impact of poverty and psychosocial factors, such as social connectedness and loneliness, on resting heart rate (RHR) in older adults.