Harvard Chan School reports: “Study highlights inequalities in early childhood vaccination in India”

Arm of young child with band aids from vaccine

A study published in JAMA Open Network by Harvard Pop Center faculty member S (Subu) V Subramanian, PhD, visiting scientist Rockli Kim, and their colleagues reveals a pattern of vaccination rates among children (ages 12-23 months) in India; despite efforts to achieve increased vaccination rates nationally, the number of children in certain regions and states in India who did not receive routine vaccinations (first dose of the diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis (DTP) vaccine)…

How does eviction during childhood impact cognitive development?

Children play a board game in the middle of moving

The urban children in this study published in Social Science & Medicine were evaluated at age 9 using four cognitive assessments. Those students who experienced eviction during middle childhood exhibited lower scores (as much as equal to a full year of schooling) than students who did not go through eviction. Authors of the study that examine the under-explored association between childhood eviction and cognitive development include Harvard Pop Center Director…

Christina Cross wins prestigious award for paper that parses out racial/ethnic differences when looking at family structure & children’s education

Head shot of Christina Cross

A paper by Harvard Pop Center post-doctoral fellow Christina Cross, PhD, was selected by the National Council on Family Relations (NCFR) as the winner of the 2020 Reuben Hill Award. Cross’s paper, which is being recognized for making a “substantial and significant contribution to family research and theory (with a requirement of theory development),” was selected by a committee that reviewed over 30 leading scholarly journals in the family field.…

Education interrupted: Impacts of family disruption on children’s educational attainment

Recent Bell Fellow Juli Simon Thomas, PhD, has authored a paper that confirms that disruptive events within a family, such as parental loss/gain of job/partner lowered the chances of their children completing high school, attending college and finishing college, and more significantly contributes new insight into the increased negative effects of multiple events within a 2-year period.

Children’s health problems prevent families from moving out of high- to low-poverty neighborhoods

Harvard Pop Center researchers, including visiting scientist and former fellow Mariana Arcaya and faculty members SV Subramanian, and Mary C. Waters are authors on a study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology that found that when families were given an option to move out of a high-poverty neighborhood and move to a low-poverty neighborhood, those families with a sick child were less likely to take advantage of the opportunity…

Low-cost, valid tool for researchers to assess nutrition and exercise in after-school programs

Harvard Pop Center faculty members Cassandra Okechukwu, ScD, MSN, and Steven Gortmaker, PhD, are co-authors on a study published in the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity that evaluates a low-cost, practitioner-administered observational tool to assist researchers in validly assessing nutrition, physical activity and screen time in an after-school program setting.