Bell Fellow Hayami Koga, along with Harvard Pop Center faculty members David Williams and Laura Kubzansky and their colleagues, have published a study in JAMA Psychiatry on the association between optimism and physical functioning among older women finding higher levels of optimism to be linked with better performance at baseline (grip strength and standing mobility) and slower rates of decline in several measures over a six-year period. Read about their…
A historical approach to validating racism as a key determinant of health
The February 2022 issue of the journal Health Affairs takes a deeper look at racism and health. Harvard Pop Center faculty affiliate David Williams, along with co-author Ruth Enid Zambrana, contribute to this piece on how the past four decades of scholarship, along with some more recent insights, have helped to highlight why racism needs to be part of the “national discourse on racial inequities in health.”
Social scientist David Williams says COVID-19 is a call to action for a ‘Marshall Plan’ for disadvantaged communities
The Chicago Sun Times reports on a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation teleconference with Professor David Williams, PhD, during which he explained how the coronavirus is bringing to light the health disparities that “reflect longstanding policies that have created pervasive social and economic inequalities in the United States.”
Marcia Castro and David Williams named as new department chairs
Congratulations to faculty members Marcia Castro and David Williams on being named as chairs of the Department of Global Health and Population, and the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, respectively. Learn more in this release by the Harvard Chan School Dean, Michelle Williams.
A holistic research framework: Factoring in role that discrimination may play in child and adolescent health
Harvard Pop Center faculty member David R. Williams, MPH, PhD, and colleagues have penned an editorial in JAMA Pediatrics that prescribes the inclusion of discrimination (including race/ethnicity, immigrant status, sexual orientation, religion, and disability status) in the health research of an increasingly diverse population of children and adolescents.
Study finds police killings of unarmed black Americans negatively impact mental health of black Americans in general population
Faculty members Alex Tsai and David R. Williams are among the authors on a study in The Lancet that utilizes novel data on police killings of black Americans to reveal the spillover effects on those living in the same state. Learn more in The New York Times and on the study website.
Article explores how election of Trump might negatively affect health of “targeted” groups
An article co-authored by David R. Williams explores how past “dramatic societal events” impacted the health of vulnerable, marginalized groups, and offers suggestions to health care providers on how to best mitigate the negative impacts that are likely to result from this recent election. The article appears in The New England Journal of Medicine. Learn more from this piece in the press. Also covered by Refinery29, and New York Magazine.
Pop Center faculty share insights into U.S. health inequalities in Harvard Gazette’s series on inequality
Pop Center faculty members Amitabh Chandra, PhD, Ashish Jha, MD, Ichiro Kawachi, MD, PhD, Joshua Salomon, PhDJ, SV Subramanian, PhD, and David Williams, PhD, are among the Harvard scholars cited on health inequalities in this Harvard Gazette article, the fourth in a series on what Harvard scholars are doing to address inequality in the United States. The piece was covered in this issue of U.S. News and World Report.
David Williams on effect of racial bias in health care
In a JAMA opinion piece published last week, David Williams discussed how societal racial bias contributes to disparities in health care and health status. “The health care system cannot eliminate racial/ethnic disparities in health,” wrote Williams. “Health care professionals need to collaborate with other sectors of society to increase awareness about the health implications of social policies in domains far removed from traditional medical and public health interventions.” Williams also was…
Continue reading “David Williams on effect of racial bias in health care”
Are block parties associated with higher social capital, better health?
Harvard Pop Center faculty members Ichiro Kawachi, MD, PhD, S V Subramanian, PhD, and David R. Williams, PhD, are authors on a paper published in Social Science & Medicine that explores the impact of block parties in Black neighborhoods on bonding social capital and self-rated health.