Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies

News and Announcements

USA Today reports: What does the recent drop in life expectancy in the U.S. tell us?

During the pandemic in 2020, life expectancy in the U.S. suffered the biggest drop since World War II, declining by 1.5 years with Black and Hispanic populations seeing even larger drops. According to former post-doc fellow Jennifer Karas Montez who is interviewed by USA Today, the downward trend in U.S. life expectancy and the increasing … Continue reading “USA Today reports: What does the recent drop in life expectancy in the U.S. tell us?”

Study finds those who expected to be working at age 62 (but then weren’t) suffered from increase in depressive symptoms

Harvard Sloan Fellow on Aging and Work Leah Abrams, PhD, is an author on a paper published in The Journals of Gerontology, Series b that finds that middle-aged adults who experienced an “unexpected work exit” suffered from more depressive symptoms, whereas working longer than planned was not associated with an increase in these symptoms (except … Continue reading “Study finds those who expected to be working at age 62 (but then weren’t) suffered from increase in depressive symptoms”

Op-ed: How the “darker, unsettling narrative” of extreme racist hatred can shed light on what is “average”

This op-ed in the Toronto Star penned by former Harvard Bell Fellow Fahad Razak, MD, and contributor Lisa Berkman, PhD, explores the concept that what is viewed as extreme within a population may shed light on the average. Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

Graduate Student Affiliate In Jeong Hwang wins prestigious award for research paper

In Jeong Hwang, a doctoral student in sociology at Harvard University, has been awarded a first place prize from Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) at the University of Michigan for her Master’s-level paper titled “Grandparenthood, Grandparenting, and Working Longer: Do the Genders of Grandparent and of Grandchild’s Parent Matter?” Congratulations, In Jeong … Continue reading “Graduate Student Affiliate In Jeong Hwang wins prestigious award for research paper”

Christina Cross in The Harvard Gazette: “Why living in a two-parent home isn’t a cure-all for Black students”

Harvard Pop Center Postdoctoral Fellow Christina Cross, PhD, has penned an op-ed in The Harvard Gazette in which she shares her forthcoming research on why a two-parent household is not a panacea for better educational outcomes for low-income Black students. Dr. Cross points to President Biden’s proposed American Families Plan as an example of a … Continue reading “Christina Cross in The Harvard Gazette: “Why living in a two-parent home isn’t a cure-all for Black students””

Mass vaccination campaign in India may have contributed to spike in cases

Professor S (Subu) V Subramanian, PhD, has authored a comment in The Lancet Global Health in which he cautions that the mass vaccination campaign in India may have contributed to the recent increase in COVID-19 cases there. He urges leadership in India to rethink its vaccination strategy to reduce virus spread by preventing overcrowding and … Continue reading “Mass vaccination campaign in India may have contributed to spike in cases”

“In India, anything and everything is a super-spreader event”

Harvard Pop Center faculty member S (Subu) V Subramanian, PhD, tells The Harvard Gazette that “in India, anything and everything is a super-spreader event.” A visualization dashboard of COVID-19 vaccine distribution in India by Subramanian’s Geographic Insights Lab was also cited by The New York Times in an article describing the recent and devastating surge of … Continue reading ““In India, anything and everything is a super-spreader event””

PGDA study examines the role of chess performance on cognition

The Program on Global Demography of Aging at Harvard (PGDA) has launched a study examining the role of chess performance on cognitive ability. The Chess Cognition Study is led by PI David Canning. The study is currently looking for volunteers to complete a virtual interview, which includes a series of cognition tests. Participants must be at … Continue reading “PGDA study examines the role of chess performance on cognition”

First study to map child undernutrition in India by village shows greatest variation at these micro levels

A study published in PNAS by Harvard Pop Center Visiting Scientist Rockli Kim, ScD, faculty member S V Subramanian, PhD, and colleagues that utilizes “state-of-the-art data science techniques” to map and predict child undernutrition across the nearly 600,000 villages in India now provides governments at the most local level with this critical information about their … Continue reading “First study to map child undernutrition in India by village shows greatest variation at these micro levels”