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.…

Can education help reduce adulthood health risks for those who were socioeconomically disadvantaged as children?

Harvard Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Society Scholar alum Esther Friedman, PhD, is lead author on a study published in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine that found that while adults who experienced childhood socioeconomic adversity had markers associated with increased health risks, their health risks were greatly reduced by adult education. The study also included those who experienced childhood physical abuse; the physiological consequences of this type of early-life adversity did…

Researchers revisit Mendelian Randomization studies of effect of BMI on depression

Harvard Pop Center faculty members Laura Kubzansky, PhD, Ichiro Kawachi, MD, PhD, and M. Maria Glymour, PhD, have co-authored a study published in American Journal of Medical Genetics Part B: Neuropsychiatric Genetics that revisits Mendelian Randomization studies (analyses based on genetic instrumental variables) of the effect of body mass index (BMI) on depression.

Sheridan explores neurogenetics approach to defining differential susceptibility to institutional care

Harvard Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Society Scholar program alum Margaret A. Sheridan, PhD, has co-authored a study published in the International Journal of Behavioral Development that explores how genetic susceptibility interacts with extreme differences in the early caregiving environments (institutional vs. non-institutional) to predict distinct outcomes of neurodevelopment at age 8.

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…