What can happen to our health when kindness becomes a habit?
Laura Kubzansky comments in this 3-minute Listen on NPR on the association she and colleagues observed between volunteering/ making charitable donations and a reduction in physical pain.
Archive: 2024
Expanded version of “Work Design for Health” employer toolkit launched
An updated and expanded version of the “Work Design for Health” employer toolkit—developed by researchers from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the MIT Sloan School of Management—has been launched. The free online toolkit, originally…
Working paper that finds greater local political conservativism to be associated with worse health outcomes is now published in a journal
A Harvard Pop Center working paper (Volume 24, No. 1) posted in September, 2024 is now published in the journal Health Affairs Scholar. The descriptive study (“it doesn’t establish a cause-and-effect relationship between a state’s politics and health…
Call for Applications: Recruiting now for interdisciplinary postdoctoral fellowships at Harvard Population Center
The Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies is now accepting applications for its postdoctoral fellowship program—the David E. Bell Fellowship for the 2025–2027 cohort. We offer competitive salaries, benefits, and research/travel funds.…
It's National Postdoc Appreciation Week!
We’re so fortunate to have six wonderful postdocs sitting with us this year and immersed in our Pop Center community.
We are also lucky to have former Bell Fellow Hiram Beltrán-Sánchez sit with us as a visiting scientist this year. Hiram kicked…
Rita Hamad offers evidence-based recommendation for next U.S. administration on alleviating child poverty and poor health
This news piece by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health features a Q&A with our faculty member Rita Hamad on why child poverty is such a pressing public health issue and how certain government policies, such as the expansion of the Child Tax…
Study explores link between epigenetic aging and racial, economic injustice
Nancy Krieger is an author on an original investigation published in JAMA Network Open that is the subject of a featured news story on the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health website. A key finding from the study is that there was significantly…
Racial inequalities in exposure to household member deaths: A "hidden" social determinant of health?
Losing a family member is stressful, especially if that person is a household member. Since Black people are both more likely to live in a home that includes extended family members and also face lower life expectancy than White people, former Bell…
Better mental health and sleep of older adults in Europe during pandemic is linked with educational level of their adult children
Harvard Bell Fellow Erika Meza, PhD, is an author on a novel paper that reports finding an association between higher levels of adult children’s educational attainment (a core marker of socio-economic status) with their older parents experiencing a…
Automation of scheduling and reminders associated with improved transition to postpartum healthcare
With the aim of helping to improve maternal health outcomes, Harvard Pop Center faculty member Jessica Cohen, PhD, and her colleagues designed a behavioral economic intervention utilizing default scheduling of appointments with primary care providers and…
