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Aging Well; Examining Health of Those on Their Way to Becoming Centenarians

Former Harvard Pop Center Bell Fellow Hiram Beltran-Sanchez, PhD, has co-authored a study that examines the long-term trajectories of disease, disability and cognitive functioning among potential centenarians, finding that those who lived to 100 had experienced overall better health along their journey to the century mark than the non-surviving members of their cohort, with about 25% with no chronic illness, 20% with no disability, and over 50% with no cognitive…

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Balanced Research Approach Called For to Explain Declining Life Expectancy of Low-Educated Women

Former Harvard RWJF Scholar Jennifer Karas Montez, PhD, and a colleague have written an editorial, published in the American Journal of Public Health, that challenges researchers to apply a balanced approach, incorporating two criteria, to better understand a complex dilemma: why is life expectancy declining among low-income women?

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The protective effect of education for cohorts graduating in bad times

Timing is everything. A study by David Cutler confirms that graduates who enter the labor market during bad economic times experience lower income, lower life satisfaction, greater obesity, more smoking and drinking later in life. The study also noted that education plays a protective role for these outcomes, as educated individuals, even when entering the market at times of high unemployment, have a much lower incidence of these outcomes than their…

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The Complexities of Assessing Health Impacts of Urbanicity in Rural Sub-Saharan Africa: A Pop Center Perspective

Harvard Pop Center Director Lisa Berkman, PhD, and Bell Fellow Fahad Razak, MD, have published a Perspective in PLoS Medicine in response to a study titled Urbanicity and Lifestyle Risk Factors for Cardiometabolic Diseases in Rural Uganda: A Cross-Sectional Study.