Harvard Pop Center faculty member Sara Bleich, a researcher committed to providing evidence to help shape and drive policies aimed at preventing obesity and diet-related diseases, will now serve as part of the Biden-Harris administration. Learn more about her staff appointment with the USDA. Congratulations, Dr. Bleich!
The power of policy; what happens when sweetened beverages are taxed & school meals are legislated to be more nutritious?
A review of two implemented policies—an excise tax of 1.81 cents/ounce on sweetened beverages in Philadelphia, and the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010—shows that both policies had a positive impact on health and health behaviors. Authors of the studies include Harvard Pop Center faculty affiliates Sara Bleich and Steven Gortmaker, and former post-doctoral fellow Christina Roberto. Learn more in this EurekaAlert release.
Ethical considerations of food and beverage warnings; weighing the pros and cons
Harvard Bell Fellow Anna Grummon, PhD, and colleagues (including Harvard Pop Center faculty members Jason Block and Sara Bleich) evaluate the ethical strengths and weaknesses of food and beverage warnings (aimed to help prevent obesity and improve health) by looking through the lens of a public health ethics framework. Their findings are published in the journal Physiology & Behavior. Other authors of the study include: Marissa Hall, Eric Rimm, Lindsey…
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More federal funds are needed to help low-income children get adequate nutrition during school closures
Public health policy professor Sara Bleich makes the case in this interview for why additional federal funding for schools needs to be part of future relief legislation, as well as increased SNAP benefits.
Prevention may be worth much more than pound of cure to tackle obesity trends
A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine that utilized state-level data projects that by 2030 almost 50% of U.S. adults will be obese, with some states coming in higher than 50% and no state at a level below 35%. Harvard Pop Center faculty members Steven Gortmaker, PhD, and Sara Bleich, PhD, are among the authors of the study that adds weight to the importance of state-level public…
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Studies find evidence of systemic racial discrimination across multiple domains in the United States
Harvard Pop Center faculty member Sara Bleich and her colleagues have published two studies examining experiences of racial discrimination in the United States. One study found substantial black-white disparities in experiences of discrimination in the U.S. spanning multiple domains including health care, employment, and law enforcement, while a separate study found similar discrimination among Latinos in the United States. Given the connection between racial discrimination and poor health outcomes in…
Did the sweetened beverage tax actually put people out of work?
According to a new study that includes our faculty member Sara Bleich and former Harvard RWJF Health & Society Scholar Christina Roberto as authors, there was not an uptick in unemployment claims in the year following the implementation of the sweetened beverage tax in Philadelphia.
What can we do to help people from gaining too much weight?
Professor Sara Bleich, a Harvard Pop Center faculty member, sheds light on how our environment can shape our behavior (and our body), and shares her journey to becoming a public policy expert on obesity in this piece in The Harvard Gazette.
A comprehensive road map for tackling risky and costly diet-related disease in the U.S.
Sara Bleich, PhD, professor of public health policy at the Harvard Chan School, has penned an op-ed in The New England Journal of Medicine that makes a strong case for an approach that is multi-prong, spanning health systems, population, individual, local, national, and private sector levels.
How can we safeguard health despite deregulation of federal food policies?
Sara Bleich, PhD, has penned a discussion in Preventive Medicine that outlines some of the recent changes made to nutritional policies as a result of deregulation efforts by the current federal administration. She emphasizes the important role that state governments and public health departments can and should play in implementing nutritional policies to safeguard people’s health.