Anna Grummon – Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies

November 2, 2022February 27, 2024

Researchers make the public health case for why alcohol labels are in need of an update

Recent Harvard Bell Fellow Anna Grummon, PhD, and her colleague Marissa G. Hall, PhD, penned a Perspective in the New England Journal of Medicine about why the well documented risks of alcohol consumption should be better explained via redesigned warning labels in order to better inform consumers. The two co-authors, along with several other colleagues, also published a study in The American Journal of Preventive Medicine, that evaluated which words…

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January 4, 2022February 27, 2024

Many chain restaurants found to change their behavior in response to menu labeling mandate, and roll out lower calorie items

Opting for newer items on the menu of your favorite chain restaurant may be the best choice if you are calorie conscious. A study published in JAMA Network Open that included nearly 60 of the largest US chain restaurants reveals that the menu items that were introduced after a calorie labeling policy was implemented (the law was enforced starting in May, 2018) had about 25% fewer calories than the already…

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April 30, 2021March 8, 2024

Honing messages about potential harms to health from sugary drinks

Harvard Bell Fellow Anna Grummon, PhD, is an author on this study published in Appetite that looks at which “health harms” participants (a group of over 1,000 parents in the U.S.) were most aware of, and which ones most discouraged them from buying sugary drinks. “These findings suggest health messages focused on a variety of health harms could raise awareness and discourage sugary drink purchases.”

October 1, 2020March 8, 2024

Behavioral scientists call for “common-sense” federal policy to help curb diet-related diseases

In this JAMA Viewpoint, Harvard Bell Fellow Anna Grummon, PhD, along with her colleague Marissa G. Hall, PhD, make a strong case for the implementation of a federal policy mandating that products containing high levels of unhealthy nutrients (e.g. sugar, salt, saturated fat) be labeled with a simple, prominent nutrient warning. Follow the media coverage: Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health News Post

July 31, 2020November 15, 2023

Learning lessons from Berkeley, CA: Analyzing roll out of nation’s first sugary beverage tax

Harvard Pop Center’s Bell Fellow Anna Grummon, PhD, is an author on this study published in the American Journal of Public Health that analyzes what factors helped to facilitate (and impede) this public policy that generated more than $9 million for public health, nutrition, and health equity through 2021.

May 29, 2020February 27, 2024

Warning: The findings of this analysis could help to shape public policies that require warning labels on sugary drinks

Harvard Bell Fellow Anna H. Grummon, PhD, and her colleague Marissa G. Hall, PhD, of the University of North Carolina, have published a meta-analysis in PLOS Medicine examining the effects of sugary beverage warning labels on changing behavior, emotions, attitudes, and perceptions. The researchers synthesized the findings of twenty-three experiments conducted across multiple countries. They found that across these experimental studies, sugary drink warnings not only reduced purchases of sugary…

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May 21, 2020March 8, 2024

Ethical considerations of food and beverage warnings; weighing the pros and cons

Harvard Bell Fellow Anna Grummon, PhD, and colleagues (including Harvard Pop Center faculty members Jason Block and Sara Bleich) evaluate the ethical strengths and weaknesses of food and beverage warnings (aimed to help prevent obesity and improve health) by looking through the lens of a public health ethics framework. Their findings are published in the journal Physiology & Behavior. Other authors of the study include: Marissa Hall, Eric Rimm, Lindsey…

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May 1, 2020February 27, 2024

Harvard Bell Fellow Anna Grummon awarded highest honor by UNC Chapel Hill for her dissertation

Anna Grummon, PhD, MSPH, is the recipient of the highest level of graduate student award bestowed by her alma mater, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Behavioral scientist Grummon received the 2020 Dean’s Distinguished Dissertation Award, Social Sciences for her dissertation titled Individual- and Population-Level Impacts of Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Health Warnings. As a postdoc at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, Dr. Grummon is furthering her research…

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September 6, 2019November 6, 2023

Sweetening the deal: Taxing a sweetened beverage by amount of sugar it contains could lead to health & economic gains

Anna Grummon, PhD, a Harvard Bell Fellow in the 2019-2021 cohort, is among the authors of an analysis published in the journal Science. The researchers conclude that health and economic gains could be better realized by taxing the sugar content of those beverages, rather than taxing the amount of liquid in the drinks. Learn more in this news post by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.