How can socioeconomic-based cardiovascular disease disparities in low- and middle-income countries be reduced?

A study published in Nature Medicine by HCPDS graduate student affiliate Dorit Stein, and other HCPDS affiliates including Till Bärnighausen, Maja Marcus, Jennifer Manne-Goehler, Nikkil Sudharsanan, and Stephane Verguet (along with their colleagues) simulates that improvements in hypertension management has greater impact “among bottom wealth quintiles in middle-income countries and in countries with larger baseline disparities in hypertension management.”

How much does age contribute to the wide variation in COVID-19 case fatality rates across nine countries?

Headshots of Nikkil and Till

Recent Bell Fellow Nikkil Sudharsanan, PhD, and Harvard Pop Center faculty member Till Bärnighausen, MD, PhD, ScD and their colleagues have published a study in the Annals of Internal Medicine that finds… “Selective testing and identifying of older cases considerably warps estimates of the lethality of COVID-19 within populations and comparisons across countries.” The findings suggest that in order to accurately compare how countries are able to care for patients…

Community-based screening may help to raise awareness and control hypertension among aging adults in China

Group of 3 elderly people

Recent Harvard Bell Fellow Nikkil Sudharsanan, along with faculty member Till Bärnighausen and their colleagues, have published a study that shows an association between the intervention and lower systolic blood pressure in an adult population in which nearly half (many, unknowingly) are at risk for hypertension, a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease.

Study projections indicate that middle-income countries will need to significantly expand health care services to keep up with aging population

Head shot of Nikkil Sudharsanan

Recent Harvard Bell Fellow Nikkil Sudharsanan, PhD, and a colleague have authored a paper published in the journal Hypertension that estimates that by 2050 demographic changes alone will increase the number of adults in Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico and South Africa who will be in need of hypertension care by 319.7 million.  

Controlling blood pressure at the population level is associated with large life expectancy gains in Indonesia

Harvard Bell Fellow Nikkil Sudharsanan, PhD, has authored a paper published in the International Journal of Epidemiology that reveals that population policies to control systolic blood pressure in Indonesia could result in large (5-6 year) gains in adult life expectancy for men and women across the entire wealth distribution of the country. Given that hypertension is high and rising in many low- and middle-income countries, the paper calls for more…

Sudharsanan and Bloom share insights into demography of aging in LMICs in new guidebook

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine has produced a guide (based on papers that were presented at a public workshop in 2017) to demography of aging research trends and future directions. Harvard Bell Fellow Nikkil Sudharsanan, PhD, and faculty member David E. Bloom, PhD, have contributed a chapter that more closely examines the expected boom in population in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), weighing the impact of both…