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.

Novel study on impact of minimum wages on early-life health in LMICs

Harvard RWJF Health & Society Scholars program alum Arijit Nandi, PhD, is an author on a paper in Social Science & Medicine that is the first to assess the impact of legislated minimum wages on the early-life health of children in low- and middle-income countries.

Community-Based Participatory Research and the mental health of refugees

Theresa Betancourt was lead author and PI on a recent study examining disparities in the mental health of young Somali Bantu and Bhutanese refugees living in Massachusetts. The study used a Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) approach, which, “with its emphasis on respecting and privileging local knowledge and cultural context, [is] well suited for research on eliminating health disparities among marginalized groups.” Results appeared in the American Journal of Public Health.

Nearly half of children in Tanzania whose mother died during or near birth don’t survive past 10th birthday

Harvard Pop Center Research Core Director Jocelyn Finlay, PhD, is lead author on a study published in Maternal and Child Health Journal that reveals a much higher mortality rate for those children who lost their mother during or shortly after birth, suggesting that improving health care of mothers, particularly while pregnant and during birth, will help to save children’s lives. Harvard Pop Center Associate Director David Canning, PhD, is also…

Gortmaker Looks for Cost-Effective Solutions to Childhood Obesity

Harvard Pop Center affiliated faculty member Steven Gortmaker, PhD, is principal investigator on CHOICES Project (Childhood Obesity Intervention Cost-Effectiveness Study), a 3-year study that will evaluate the cost-effectiveness of 40 interventions designed to prevent childhood obesity.

Economic growth no cure for child undernutrition

As reported in this HSPH release, an article in the Harvard Gazette and this NPR blog, a large study published in The Lancet Global Health, co-authored by Pop Center faculty member S V Subramanian and former PGDA Fellow Sebastian Vollmer, finds that, contrary to widely held beliefs, economic growth has little to no effect on the nutritional status of the world’s poorest children. “They [the findings] emphasize,” said Subramanian, “that…