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Job stress that impacts family life linked to increased cardiometabolic risk

A WFHN study of nursing home employees found that job stress that impacts family life (work-to-family conflict) is linked to increased cardiometabolic risk, whereas being married and having younger children at home was protective against this increased risk. Lisa Berkman is lead author on study, published in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, which also found that family conflict that impacted work life (family-to-work conflict) was associated with getting less…

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Single motherhood before age 50 linked to poorer health later in life

Harvard Pop Center Director Lisa Berkman, PhD, is lead author on a study published in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health that found that single motherhood before the age of 50 was associated with poorer health in later life. The association was stronger in England, the US, Denmark, and Sweden than in some of the other countries, such as those in Southern Europe, suggesting that social supports (e.g., a…

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Lisa Berkman on link between maternity leave & mental health featured in Harvard Chan School’s The Big 3

The Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s news feature The Big 3 asks Pop Center Director Lisa Berkman, PhD, three questions about a recent paper that found that women who received more generous maternity leave benefits with their first born child experienced better mental health that extended in older age. Other co-authors of the study, published in Social Science & Medicine, include Pop Center faculty member and former Bell…

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Berkman to appear on panel of “The Vow Factor” Congressional Briefing April 17

Lisa Berkman, PhD, the director of the Harvard Pop Center, will be a panel member at a congressional briefing entitled “The Vow Factor: Marriage, Divorce and Family Formation and their Impact on Health and Well-Being” at the U.S. Capital Visitor Center on Friday, April 17 from noon – 12:30 p.m. The Congressional briefing is sponsored by The Population Association of America, and the Association of Population Centers, and is open…

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Call for institutions to adapt to support older age workers & more productive society

Harvard Pop Center Director Lisa Berkman, PhD, and faculty member Mauricio Avendano, PhD, have co-authored a paper published in Daedalus that examines the challenges and opportunities posed by an aging U.S. population, particularly as it relates to an aging workforce.

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Is education a factor in mortality gap between U.S. & Europe?

Harvard Pop Center Director Lisa Berkman, PhD, and faculty member Mauricio Avendano, PhD, are co-authors on a study published in the American Journal of Public Health that suggests that the larger educational disparities in mortality in the United States partly explain why US adults have higher mortality than their European counterparts. Although more evidence is needed, the study suggests that policies to reduce mortality among the lower educated could be…

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Lisa Berkman speaks on NPR’s Here & Now on American Workplace Policies

Harvard Pop Center Director Lisa Berkman shares findings from the Work, Family & Health Network intervention study with Robin Young in this NPR story that aired on Here & Now. This news story, “Are American Workplace Policies Stuck in the 1950s?,” is part of NPR’s focus this month on what factors shape health, the topic of a recent poll by NPR,  the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Harvard T.H.…

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Can we learn about mortality risk by comparing data from self-reports vs. claims on heart attacks?

Three Harvard Pop Center researchers, including research fellow Laura C. Yasaitis, PhD, Pop Center Director Lisa Berkman, PhD, and faculty member Amitabh Chandra, PhD, have published a study in Circulation, the journal of the American Heart Association, that compares self-reported data to administrative data (Medicare claims) on acute myocardial infarction events.

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Pop Center researchers publish paper on use of life course work-family profiles to predict mortality risk among US women

Researchers affiliated with the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies have published a study in the American Journal of Public Health that examines the use of sequence analysis as an exposure assessment tool for life course research. Visiting Scientist Erika Sabbath, ScD, who is lead author on the study, collaborated with Research Associate Iván Mejía Guevara, PhD, faculty member M. Maria Glymour, ScD, and Director Lisa Berkman, PhD.