Amitahb Chandra is co-author of this editorial in JAMA that suggests that the significant job growth in the health care sector may have to be scaled back in order to reduce health care costs.
What is driving optimism’s association with reduced risk for cardiovascular disease?
Laura Kubzansky, a Harvard Pop Center faculty member and co-director of the Lee Kum Sheung Center for Health and Happiness, is an author on a paper that analyzes the relationship between optimism and healthy behaviors, such as exercising, eating fruits and vegetables, and not smoking cigarettes; is it that optimistic people engage in healthier behaviors and that is what is reducing their risk for cardiovascular disease and related mortality?
Study points to unmet need for social support among older women in rural South Africa
Researchers affiliated with the HAALSI research project have published a new study that found that older women in South Africa have weaker social network connections and are more socially isolated than men and younger women. Higher levels of widowhood and fewer connections outside of the family network are thought to explain this age- and gender-based difference.
Nations at Risk colloquium explores ‘deaths of despair’ and ‘dreams of a fairer world’
Nobel-Prize winning economist Professor Sir Angus Deaton and University College London Professor Sir Michael Marmot delivered powerful presentations to a full room at the Joseph B. Martin Conference Center at the Harvard Medical School—as well as to a live online audience—on Friday, April 13, 2018. The event, co-sponsored by the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies and the PhD Program in Population Health Sciences at the Harvard T.H. Chan School…
Father’s unemployment linked to increased purchases of psychotropic medication by offspring
Mauricio Avendano is an author on a paper that shows that while there was no association between a mother’s unemployment and the purchases of pscyhotropic medication by her offspring, there was a significant increase in these purchases among adolescents whose fathers were unemployed.
Mary C. Waters awarded prestigious Harvard Arts and Sciences professorship
Harvard Pop Center faculty member Mary C. Waters has been named the PVK Professor of Arts and Sciences in recognition of her excellence in leadership, teaching, and scholarly achievement. The prestigious, five-year term professorship is one of four awarded this year to faculty for the highest level of scholarly achievement within the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard. Learn more in The Harvard Gazette.
Use of randomized control trials (RCTs) in social interventions not without challenges, but still valuable
Harvard Pop Center Director Lisa Berkman has authored a study published in European Journal of Public Health that finds that while RCTs can pose challenges for both social and biomedical interventions alike, they still can serve as a helpful way to identify causal relationships.
Why is U.S. infant mortality rate among full-term births as high as it is?
Harvard Pop Center Research Analyst Neha Bairoliya, PhD, is co-author of a study published in PLOS Medicine that finds that many of the over 7,000 full-term infant deaths a year in the U.S. could be prevented. Learn more in this Reuters piece.
Why is U.S. healthcare spending so high? How does it really stack up to other high-income countries?
Faculty member Ashish, Jha, MD, is author and lead researcher on a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) that takes a “careful and more comprehensive” look at the U.S. healthcare system. Learn about the somewhat surprising results of the study in this piece in The New York Times.
Dr. Joel Salinas to be a featured speaker at TEDxCambridge event
Harvard Pop Center faculty member Joel Salinas, MD, will be a featured speaker at an upcoming TEDxCambridge event on Thursday, May 3, 2018, from 7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m. at the Boston Opera House.