Featured series 
Tag: Harvard School of Public Health
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Science & Tech
Examining differing reproductive desires in Gambia
For men in rural Gambia, more than 15 kids are desirable. That’s double the number of children that women are actually delivering. The number may seem high to people in the West, but in rural Gambia fertility for both men and women represents more than simple family size. Allan Hill, a researcher at the Harvard…
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Health
Mapping the brain’s response to breathlessness
In an experiment, healthy men were placed on ventilators, and their ability to take deep breaths was controlled. As their breathing was regulated, their brains were imaged using a PET camera. The images were then compared to scans taken prior to the experiment to see which areas, if any, were turned on when the body…
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Health
Head lice frequently misdiagnosed
Via an informational Website, researchers asked readers to submit samples of what they thought were head lice or louse eggs. The readers completed questionnaires that asked them their relationship to the infested person and the measures taken to treat the perceived infestation. “An uncomfortably large proportion of the submissions had nothing to do with head…
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Health
Nearly half of college students used tobacco in one-year period
In 2000, nearly one-half of college students reported using tobacco products in the previous year. By including the use of cigars and smokeless tobacco, a study found a greater prevalence of tobacco use among college students than have previous reports that looked only at cigarette use. Although about 28 percent of both male and female…
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Health
Active girls who drink colas are five times more likely to fracture bones
In a study, more than 460 ninth- and tenth-grade girls reported their activity levels, soda drinking habits, and history of bone fractures. A researcher found that drinking any type of soda was linked to an increased likelihood of having a bone fracture, and that the greatest increases were for those girls who drank cola beverages,…
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Health
Cognitive testing of elderly could help detect medical problems
Shari Bassuk, research fellow in the Department of Health and Social Behavior at the Harvard School of Public Health, and her colleagues have found that even mild impairments in areas such as memory and orientation were strongly predictive of mortality among people under the age of 80 years old. “There are major implications for these…
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Health
Physically active women reduce risk of stroke
A Harvard study followed 72,488 nurses for eight years and concluded that the more a woman exercises, the lower the odds she will suffer a stroke. Two large Harvard studies of men also show that exercise reduces their chances of getting strokes. However, the more-is-better association has not yet been proven for men as it…
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Health
Study points to more targeted use of Ritalin
An area known as the putamen, located deep in the center of the brain, helps to control movement and attention. Harvard researchers believe that the putamen is involved in Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. The finding also suggests that Ritalin may not be effective in treating ADHD. When researchers examined hyperactive, inattentive boys with a new type…
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Health
Public health researchers battle West Nile virus
West Nile encephalitis infection, carried by mosquitoes, can cause the brain to swell but rarely leads to death. Many people carry the virus with mild if any symptoms, but people with severe reactions may suffer convulsions, fever, and paralysis. There are no specific treatments for the disease. The virus had never been seen in North…
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Science & Tech
Air pollution deadlier than previously thought
The idea that air pollution is harmful is hardly new. However, critics of the previous research of Joel Schwartz, associate professor of environmental health at the Harvard School of Public Health, and other air pollution researchers have claimed that those who die from air pollution are the very ill who would have died within a…
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Science & Tech
Industrial disasters sparked field of environmental health
Two large, unnatural disasters helped to create the impetus for the field of environmental health to grow in scope. But before there was a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and before the National Institutes of Health (NIH) included environmental health, there was the Kresge Center for Environmental Health at Harvard’s School of Public Health. Beginning in…
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Health
Jolie-Pitt Foundation Donates $2 Million to Global Health Committee to Fight HIV/AIDS and Tuberculosis in Ethiopia
The Global Health Committee (GHC) has announced it will receive $2 million dollars from the Jolie-Pitt Foundation to bring life-saving medicines to Ethiopians suffering from HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis. The money will be used to create a center for AIDS and tuberculosis-affected children in the capital city of Addis Ababa, and to help establish a program…