Are those Americans living longer also living healthier?

It is commonly thought that those who live the longest typically experience a condensed period of illness (compression of morbidity) as opposed to many years of chronic illness. However, a recent study published in Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health by former Harvard Pop Center Bell Fellow Hiram Beltrán-Sánchez, PhD, and faculty member SV Subramanian, PhD, suggests that older adults in the U.S. are experiencing a greater disease burden in…

Birth weight is a larger contributor to height than the socio-economic conditions in which a child grows up

Former Pop Center student Aditi Krishna is lead author on a new study in Economics & Human Biology that examines the role of birth weight in childrens’ height; Lisa Berkman, Gunther Fink, and SV Subramanian are co-authors. The study shows that prenatal conditions, reflected in birth weight, are more important in setting height trajectories in comparison to postnatal factors, which do not help children recover fully from early growth deficits. In other words, children born at…

Pop Center faculty share insights into U.S. health inequalities in Harvard Gazette’s series on inequality

Pop Center faculty members Amitabh Chandra, PhD, Ashish Jha, MD, Ichiro Kawachi, MD, PhD, Joshua Salomon, PhDJ, SV Subramanian, PhD, and David Williams, PhD, are among the Harvard scholars cited on health inequalities in this Harvard Gazette article, the fourth in a series on what Harvard scholars are doing to address inequality in the United States. The piece was covered in this issue of U.S. News and World Report.

Children’s health problems prevent families from moving out of high- to low-poverty neighborhoods

Harvard Pop Center researchers, including visiting scientist and former fellow Mariana Arcaya and faculty members SV Subramanian, and Mary C. Waters are authors on a study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology that found that when families were given an option to move out of a high-poverty neighborhood and move to a low-poverty neighborhood, those families with a sick child were less likely to take advantage of the opportunity…

By honing in on top 5 risk factors for child undernutrition in India, findings could lead to more effective interventions

Harvard Pop Center affiliated researchers including recent Bell Fellow Daniel Corsi, PhD,  research associate Iván Mejía-Guevara, PhD,  and faculty and executive committee member SV Subramanian (Subu), PhD, have published a study in Social Science & Medicine that has evaluated the contribution of 15 common risk factors for chronic child undernutrition in India. The findings point to five risk factors responsible for more than 65% of the problem. Learn more in…

Eliminating ‘food deserts’ not a panacea for improving diet quality & reducing disparities

Harvard Pop Center faculty members Jason Block, MD, and SV Subramanian (Subu), PhD, have co-authored a paper published in PLOS Medicine that suggests that when it comes reducing dietary disparities and improving dietary quality in the U.S. there are more effective strategies than increasing access to healthy foods (eliminating ‘food deserts’). Learn more in this Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health news post, in this piece on MedicalDaily.com and…

Despite economic progress, millions of women in low- and middle-income countries still severely undernourished

Harvard Pop Center faculty and researchers, including Fahad Razak, MD, former Bell Fellow and current visiting scientist, as well as former Bell Fellow Daniel Corsi, PhD, Pop Center Director Lisa Berkman, PhD, and faculty member SV Subramanian (Subu), PhD, are among the authors of a novel study published in JAMA on severe, chronic, adult undernutrition. The study provides the first global estimate of severe undernutrition (defined by body mass index…

Multi-level analysis finds “micro-geographies” of child undernutrition in India

Four Harvard Pop Center researchers, including research associate Iván Mejía-Guevara, PhD,  recent doctoral program graduate Aditi Krishna, PhD, former Bell Fellow Daniel Corsi, PhD, and faculty member SV Subramanian, PhD, are authors on a paper published in the Journal of South Asian Development that evaluates child undernutrition in India by level – individual, community and state – so that policies can more effectively target these determinants.

Harvard Pop Center faculty among top 25 most productive researchers of health inequalities

Ichiro Kawachi, SV Subramanian (Subu), Nancy Krieger, and David R. Williams are among the top 25 most productive researchers in the field of health inequalities, according to a study published in the journal Social Science & Medicine. The four Harvard Pop Center faculty members have published 462 studies, in total, on health inequalities between 1966 – 2014. In addition, the study ranked Social Science & Medicine, with co-editors-in-chief Kawachi and…

Is there a female disadvantage in India when it comes to nutrition?

Not according to a paper published in the Journal of South Asian Development by former Bell Fellow Daniel Corsi, PhD, and Harvard Pop Center faculty member SV Subramanian (Subu), PhD.  Although previous studies have found there to be a female disadvantage in India when it comes to mortality, allocation of food within households, and healthcare coverage, the researchers in this study did not find there to be consistent evidence of…