Researchers using all-cause mortality data from civil registration systems estimate that deaths from COVID-19 in India are much higher than officially recorded

Head shot of Aashish Gupta

Harvard Bell Fellow Aashish Gupta has co-authored a research article—along with colleague Murad Banaji—published in PLOS Global Public Health that utilizes all-cause mortality data from civil registration systems across 12 states in India as a way to try and get a more accurate estimation of COVID-19 deaths than what has been reported by the “patchy” mortality surveillance system in that country. “The surveillance of pandemic mortality in India has been…

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

Glass of red wine from Flickr

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…

When trying to receive health care for depression, discrimination does not help

Headshot of Leslie Adams

Our Bell Fellow Leslie Adams collaborated on this paper based on a qualitative component of a larger, mixed-methods, community-based participatory research study focused on understanding how health care discrimination influences depression treatment preferences. The study provides a more in-depth investigation of the implications of negative interactions in the health care sector for diverse people with lived experience of depression. The study was funded by the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute…

Harvard Bell Fellow Leslie Adams awarded two grants related to suicide prevention among Black men

Headshot of Leslie Adams

Our Bell Fellow Leslie Adams, PhD, has been awarded two grants that will help to fuel her research aimed at reducing inequalities in the use of mental health care services in marginalized populations. Congratulations to Dr. Adams on being selected as the recipient of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention Young Investigators Award. This grant will allow her to pursue a two-year study (“Real-time assessments of suicidality among Black men:…

Harvard Pop Center welcomes new cadre of postdoc fellows

Photos of Anna Grummon, Christina Cross, Sung Park, and Justin Rodgers with the text "We proudly welcome our new postdoctoral fellows"

We are pleased to introduce the new postdoctoral fellows who have recently  joined us. We are welcoming a new Bell Fellow, Anna Grummon, PhD, a behavioral scientist with a special focus on nutrition policies, as well as new Sloan Fellow on Aging and Work Sung S. Park, a sociologist who plans to explore the potential benefits and penalties of familial and job-specific circumstances on women’s labor force activities by race/ethnicity,…

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

Jar of sugary syrup

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.

Former Harvard Bell Fellow authors book on global aging

Kavita Sivaramakrishnan head shot

Our former Bell Fellow (2008-2010 cohort) Kavita Sivaramakrishnan is author of the book As the World Ages (Harvard University Press). Learn more about her work in Columbia University’s Public Health Now Q&A “Global Aging is a Local Issue.” Photo: Kavita Sivaramakrishnan during fellowship at Harvard Pop Center

Are brief, population-based depression measures suitable for Black men?

Headshot of Leslie Adams

Harvard Bell Fellow Leslie Adams, PhD, is lead author on a paper published in the American Journal of Men’s Health that explores whether the commonly used psychometric scale — the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression (CES-D) — accurately assesses depression among Black men. Findings show that several items on the CES-D scale may not fully capture the gendered depression experience for this group and should be interpreted with caution in…

How does the interaction of multiple life events, plus our age, affect our health?

Recent Bell Fellow Juli Simon Thomas, PhD, has published a study in the Longitudinal and Life Course Studies: International Journal. She finds that the negative health impacts of such disruptive events as divorce and job loss are worsened when they overlap (the more the events, the worse the health impacts) and these events take a greater toll on health when experienced at a later age.

Working paper: Up, Down & Reciprocal: The Dynamics of Intergenerational Transfers, Family Structure & Health in a Low-Income Context

Harvard Bell Fellow Collin Payne is lead author on a working paper that explores the complex nature of how resources are shared and redistributed within a family in the absence of a public pension system in a rural sub-Saharan African setting.