Featured series 
Tag: government and public policy
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Campus & Community
U.S. lagging in adoption of electronic health records
With fewer than one in 10 doctors making full use of electronic health records and as few as 5 percent of hospitals using one form of them, the U.S. health care industry is way behind in adopting new systems that can improve patient care and reduce medical mistakes, according to a new report co-authored by…
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Health
Smoke-free pubs keep Irish eyes smiling
A survey of air pollution levels in “Irish pubs” around the world has found that indoor air pollution in authentic Irish pubs in Ireland, where a smoke-free law has been in effect for two years, is 91 percent lower than in “Irish pubs” located in other countries and cities where smoke-free laws do not apply.…
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Science & Tech
Berkman Center helps launch StopBadware campaign
The problems caused by badware have very serious implications, both for every day use of computers, and for the long-term viability of the open Internet. On Jan. 25, 2006, the Berkman Center, the Oxford Internet Institute, Consumer Reports WebWatch, and a wide range of corporate sponsors announced the StopBadware.org initiative, a project aimed at stopping…
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Campus & Community
Beckert tracks cotton trail
Sven Beckert, a professor of history with an expertise in 19th century America, is hoping to understand the roots of the global economic ties that bind the world today by looking at one of the first truly global products: cotton. “Once upon a time, it was the most important agricultural product, the most important export,…
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Science & Tech
Survey: Many seniors don’t understand Medicare drug benefit
When asked how well they understand the new Medicare drug benefit, more than six in 10 seniors (61 percent) say ‘not too well’ or ‘not at all,’ while more than one in three seniors (35 percent) say ‘very’ or ‘somewhat’ well. When asked whether the Medicare drug benefit would help them personally, more seniors say…
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Science & Tech
Survey of Katrina evacuees in Houston: Half trapped in homes waited three days or more for rescue
One-third (34 percent) of Katrina evacuees in a survey reported that they were trapped in their homes and had to be rescued. Half (50 percent) of those who were trapped said they waited three or more days to be rescued. Key health-related findings included: • 52 percent reported having no health insurance coverage at the…
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Campus & Community
Task Forces on Women release findings
Harvard’s Task Forces on Women Faculty and on Women in Science and Engineering, appointed three months ago to address concerns of women faculty and women in science throughout the University, Monday (May 16) released reports calling for large-scale changes in the way the University recruits faculty and supports women and underrepresented minorities pursuing academic careers.…
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Science & Tech
New calculations suggest economic cost of Iraq war much larger than previously recognized
A paper presented to the annual Allied Social Sciences Association meeting in Boston, in a session jointly sponsored by the American Economic Association and the Economists for Peace and Security, suggests that the costs of the Iraq war are much higher than previously reckoned, with conservative to moderate estimates ranging from slightly less than a…
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Health
Study casts doubt on claims that the medical malpractice system is plagued by frivolous lawsuits
The debate over medical malpractice litigation, which raged during the last presidential campaign, continues as a hot-button political and health care issue in the U.S. The Senate is expected to vote soon on legislation to impose a federal cap on noneconomic damages in malpractice suits, following on similar bills that passed the House of Representatives…
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Campus & Community
Ninety percent of U.S. wounded survive
For an article in the Dec. 9, 2004 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, Atul Gawande, an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and a surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, gathered data on casualties and talked with surgical teams that served near the front lines in Iraq. He concludes that…
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Health
Researchers find high levels of potentially toxic heavy metals in herbal medicine products
“This study, yet again, highlights the need for Congress to revisit the way dietary supplements are regulated in the U.S.,” said co- author David Eisenberg, MD, the Bernard Osher Associate Professor of Medicine and Director of the Harvard Medical School Division of Research and Education in Complementary and Integrative Medical Therapies. “Over-the-counter herbs and supplements…
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Science & Tech
Charter schools get high grades
For many parents, educators, and policy-makers in the United States, charter schools – innovative public schools that are free from much bureaucratic oversight but must “compete” for students in order to retain their charters – have held out enormous promise as a public alternative to failing traditional schools. So when the American Federation of Teachers…
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Science & Tech
China’s one-child policy comes of age
When the Chinese government dictated that families limit themselves to one child each, it was a huge change: Chinese women averaged six births a piece in 1970, and parents traditionally relied on a large number of offspring to provide an economic security blanket. The purpose of the initiative, says Harvard Graduate School of Education Assistant…
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Science & Tech
Residential segregation in metro Boston goes beyond affordability
New research from the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University shows that in a region where median home prices now exceed $400,000, affordability alone does not explain the continued patterns of racial segregation that exist in the Boston area. Research findings implicate a complex tangle of factors, including housing preferences and discrimination. “In metro Boston…
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Campus & Community
Worth more than the paper they’re written on
According to Beth Simmons, a professor of government at Harvard, governments care what others think of them. They want to be admired and can be publicly embarrassed, just like like people can. Such traits help explain why governments would enter international agreements on areas of mainly domestic concern, such as civil rights, women’s rights, race…
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Science & Tech
Who goes to college?
According to the College Board, people with a bachelor’s degree will earn, on average, $1 million more throughout their lifetimes than those with only a high school diploma. Yet with the average tuition price of private four-year colleges nudging $20,000 per year and their public counterparts charging, on average, more than $4,000, access to that…
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Campus & Community
Surveying students to understand school reform
Since the fall of 2001, Pedro Noguera, who is the Judith K. Dimon Professor in Communities and Schools at the Graduate School of Education, and a team of research assistants have been interviewing 10th-graders in 10 Boston Public Schools and gathering their insights on which practices are effective and which are not. “So much of…
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Science & Tech
Area universities enhance regional economy
Harvard and seven other Greater Boston research universities took center stage in their role as the area’s special economic advantage: magnets for talent and investment that infuse more than $7 billion into the regional economy each year. At a Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce breakfast, leaders from the universities, including President Lawrence H. Summers, President…
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Science & Tech
New study suggests staggered boards hurt shareholders
Staggered boards hurt shareholders of hostile bid targets even when a majority of the board is made of independent directors, and they do not appear to benefit shareholders of targets that are acquired in a negotiated acquisition, concludes a study conducted by Harvard Law School professors Lucian Bebchuk, John Coates, and Guhan Subramanian. This research…
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Science & Tech
New research questions competition in corporate charters
The dominant state in attracting the incorporations of publicly traded companies is, and has long been, the state of Delaware. Although home to less than one-third of one percent of the U.S. population, Delaware plays a central role in setting corporate governance rules for the nation’s publicly traded companies. “The widely accepted justification for the…
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Health
New alternative to USDA dietary guidelines nearly twice as effective in reducing risk for major chronic disease
Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health rigorously assessed the diets of more than 100,000 men and women and found that the reduction in risk was nearly twice as great for those whose diet met the new guidelines when compared to those whose eating patterns reflected the current USDA dietary guidelines. The findings appeared…
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Health
Strict enforcement of lead abatement policies saves communities money
Exposure to lead is determined by blood tests, and measured in micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has set a “level of concern” at 10 micrograms per deciliter. Even at low levels, lead poisoning in children can cause IQ deficiencies, reading and learning disabilities, impaired hearing, reduced…
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Science & Tech
Prying the lid off the FDA
Even though asthma is responsible for more deaths and more hospitalizations than arthritis in the United States, the greater political influence of arthritis sufferers prompts the federal Food and Drug Administration to work more expeditiously on their behalf. “Why give one drug priority over another?” asks researcher Daniel Carpenter. “Well, the FDA has limited resources…
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Science & Tech
Structuring 21st century government for homeland defense
A report by Kennedy School of Government lecturer Elaine C. Kamarck, “Applying 21st Century Government to the Challenge of Homeland Security,” offers some specific recommendations: — Create a National Terrorism Intelligence Center within the FBI to fuse intelligence gathering capabilities of national security agencies with investigative resources of law enforcement — Increase protection at the…
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Science & Tech
Patents have negative impact on access to HIV/AIDS drugs in developing countries
Researchers Joan-Ramon Borrell and Jayashree Watal collected sales data for HIV/AIDS drugs in a sample of 34 low- and middle-income countries between 1995 and 1999 to assess the impact of patents on unsubsidized access to a new drug therapy. Their main finding is that patent rights do have a negative effect on unsubsidized access to…
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Science & Tech
Race, place, and segregation
Researchers for the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University, using U.S. census data from 2000, examined whether three major metropolitan areas — Boston, Chicago and San Diego — continue to be segregated. They found that segregation persists, and has even expanded into new areas. Residents of Chicago’s metropolitan area , for instance, are redrawing the…
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Science & Tech
New approach to cervical cancer screening could save lives
When caught early through a Pap test, cervical cancer is almost 100 percent preventable, with treatment of precancers. Compared with current practice, shifting women currently getting annual conventional Pap tests to a schedule of Pap tests once every three years (using a new liquid-based technology that allows for extraction of DNA from cells taken in…
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Science & Tech
Americans don’t see obesity as serious health problem
Using unique survey data that they collected, researchers Taeku Lee and J. Eric Oliver presented the first examination of public attitudes towards obesity and obesity policy. They found that, contrary to the views of health experts, most Americans are not seriously concerned with obesity, express relatively low support for obesity-targeted policies, and still view obesity…