How do functional abilities of aging population in South Africa compare to those in other LMICs?

Researchers affiliated with the Harvard Pop Center have authored a paper based on research from the Health and Aging in Africa: a Longitudinal Study of an INDEPTH Community in South Africa (HAALSI) study that finds that older South African men had 30% higher odds than women of being limited when it came to performing activities of daily living (ADLs), and that this cohort in South Africa (men and women) did not…

Does awareness of disability assistance influence how we evaluate health symptoms of others?

Harvard RWJF Health & Society Scholar Rourke O’Brien, PhD, has authored a Short Report in Social Science & Medicine based on evidence from a nationally representative survey. The researcher found that respondents in the experimental group (primed to consider the existence of disability assistance) were less likely to rate the symptoms of a hypothetical individual as severe relative to the control group. In addition, these respondents were more likely to…

In assessing whether those living longer are also living healthier, broader view of morbidity needed

In the current volume of Global Health Action, three researchers affiliated with the Harvard Pop Center — former Bell Fellow Hiram Beltran-Sanchez, PhD, current Bell Fellow Fahad Razak, MD, and faculty member SV Subramanian (Subu), PhD — have authored a study that challenges the widely accepted, disability based definition of morbidity in the compression of morbidity framework.

Rural South Africa seeing increase in mortality in population aged over 50 due to HIV/TB

Harvard Pop Center Director Lisa Berkman, PhD, and affiliated researchers Kathleen Kahn, PhD, and Stephen Tollman, PhD, have co-authored a study published in the International Journal of Social Epidemiology that examines the social conditions and disability related to the mortality of older people in rural South Africa.