Cross-cultural course in Colombia boosts awareness of refugee issues
Sixteen students from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the University of Antioquia School of Medicine participated in a cross-cultural course, Health of Urban Displaced Populations in Post-Conflict Colombia, January 5-23, 2016 to study public health…
Gun violence addressed in reddit ‘AMA’
There’s been a heightened focus on gun violence in the U.S. On January 5, 2016, President Barack Obama announced new executive actions to reduce the number of mass shootings, suicides, and killings. On January 7, he held a…
David Hemenway will discuss gun violence in reddit ‘AMA’
Q & A will precede President Obama’s town hall on reducing gun violence On January 5, 2016 President Barack Obama announced a series of executive actions intended to reduce the number of mass shootings, suicides, and killings that…
Law enforcement-related deaths discussed in reddit ‘AMA’
Why should law enforcement-related deaths be treated as a public health issue? Nancy Krieger, professor of social epidemiology, discussed that topic during a reddit “AMA” (Ask Me Anything) on Thursday, December 17. In a recent paper, Krieger and her research team…
Call for police killings, police deaths to be reported as notifiable weekly public health data
For immediate release: December 8, 2015 Boston, MA – Although no reliable official data currently exist on the number of law enforcement-related deaths each year in the U.S., counting these deaths can and should be done because the…
Exploring the increase in public mass shootings
Even though there’s a running debate as to what exactly constitutes a “mass shooting,” Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s David Hemenway says that the more “public” kind of shootings—like the one on December 2, 2015 in…
Helping victims of sexual violence overcome PTSD
November 17, 2015 -- Karestan Koenen, professor of psychiatric epidemiology at Harvard Chan School, is an expert on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a psychological reaction that occurs after a high-stress event and includes symptoms such as depression, anxiety,…
Physicians must play a greater role in social justice
Physicians need to step up their role in safeguarding human and civil rights because failure to do so can threaten the health and even the lives of individuals facing political persecution, social strife, racial discrimination, or other forms…
Living with guns rather than dying with guns
Even with widespread access to guns in the U.S., there are still many things that can be done to reduce gun violence, such as adding common-sense safety mechanisms to guns or—even more simply—urging gun owners to lock up…
How to cut gun deaths
Reducing the number of guns or reducing access to guns would lead to fewer gun deaths. Another way to cut gun violence would be to treat it as a public health issue and establish stricter gun regulations. So…