According to a new study published in Journal of Health and Social Behavior and co-authored by RWJF alum Steven Haas, adolescents tend to be more powerful in influencing their friends to start smoking than in helping them to quit. “In order to become a smoker, kids need to know how to smoke, they need to know where to buy cigarettes and how to smoke without being caught, which are all things they…
Debt hurts more than just your credit rating
A recent study led by former RWJF scholar Elizabeth Sweet found that high student debt leads to a greater incidence of high blood pressure and depression in people ages 24-32. The study was featured in both Time and Forbes. With regard to cultural messages regarding an individual’s responsibility for debt, Sweet pointed out that debt, while often impossible to avoid, is stigmatized by our society. “[Debt] is going to be a way of…
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Harvard Pop Center Director Lisa Berkman is appointed president of APC
Harvard Pop Center Director Lisa Berkman has recently been appointed president of The Association of Population Centers (APC). The organization, an independent group of universities and research groups whose mission is to foster collaborative demographic research and data sharing, translate basic population research for public policy decision-makers, and provide educational and training opportunities in population studies, was founded in 1991, and is open to any organization with a primary interest in…
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Harvard Pop Center Bell Fellow Ian Salas Receives Prestigious Award
J.M. Ian Salas, PhD, one of our current Bell Fellows, was recently presented with the prestigious Dorothy S. Thomas Award by the Population Association of America (PAA) at their annual meeting in Boston. This award, which recognizes research focused on the interrelationships among social, economic and demographic variables, was given to Salas for a paper that was published while he was a doctoral student at the University of California Irvine…
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Could text messages help to improve adherence among HIV-positive youth in Uganda?
A focus group study co-authored by former postdoc research fellow Sebastian Linnemayr sheds light into potential obstacles and areas to focus on to maximize the efficacy of this intervention, such as ensuring confidentiality and increasing accessibility.
SV Subramanian co-author in study that examines frequency of fish intake and diabetes among adult Indians
SV Subramanian (Subu) is co-author of a recently published study that explores the role that choice of foods plays in diabetes prevention in a developing country.
David Cutler’s discusses his new book about the American health care system, “The Quality Cure”
Harvard Pop Center affiliated faculty member David Cutler spoke about his book The Quality Cure: How Focusing on Health Care Quality Can Save Your Life and Lower Spending Too on healthinsurance.org’s Curbside Consult.
Self-confidence of Fukushima mothers lower after nuclear power plant disaster
A first look at maternal self-confidence after experiencing a nuclear power accident co-authored by former Harvard Pop Center director and current affiliated faculty member Michael R. Reich suggests that such disasters do lower maternal self-confidence, which can lead to an increase in interpersonal problems and depression.
Are older sexual partners a major risk factor for HIV for young women in sub-Saharan Africa?
Although it is commonly thought that older sexual partners are a major risk factor for HIV for young women in sub-Saharan Africa (and there have been public health campaigns launched to discourage these relationships) in a recent study co-authored by Harvard Pop Center affiliated faculty members Ichiro Kawachi, SV Subramanian, and Till Bärnighausen partner age-disparity did not predict HIV acquisition amongst young women.
Temporary migration and epidemiology trends in rural South Africa
Harvard Pop Center affiliated faculty Kathleen Kahn and Stephen Tollman have co-authored a study that finds that in the Agincourt sub-district of northeast South Africa, temporary migration (migrants relocating mainly for work purposes and remaining linked to the rural household) is more important than age and gender in explaining variations in mortality, whatever the cause. The study suggests that public health policies should account for population mobility, and that the…
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