Featured series 
Tag: HSPH
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Health
Improving women’s health key Indian strategy
Detailed research of Indian health disparities has revealed that significant differences in access to health care exist even within families, with the health and nutrition of women and girls taking a backseat to that of men and boys.
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Nation & World
Mayor Bloomberg receives HSPH’s Richmond Award
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York City has been named the 2007 recipient of the Julius B. Richmond Award, the highest honor given by the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH).
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Campus & Community
Newsmakers
Katherine Swartz, professor of health policy and economics at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), has been elected to the Institute of Medicine (IOM). Swanee Hunt, founding director of the Women and Public Policy Program at the Kennedy School of Government (KSG) and an adjunct lecturer in public policy at the School, was inducted…
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Health
Data on life expectancy show many countries clustered in high mortality ‘traps’
Growing recognition of the importance of health as a contributing factor to economic development and societal change has prompted the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) to add a new subsection on sustainable health to its existing section on sustainable Development.
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Health
At HMOs, Medicaid patients fare worse than others
Once viewed as a panacea to the nation’s health care problems, HMOs have fallen out of favor. Commercially insured patients who flooded into HMOs, or managed care, in the early 1990s left in droves by the end of the decade. Medicaid patients, however, don’t always have the luxury of choosing their health plans, and the…
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Health
Humanitarian aid professionals strategize
The public and private agencies that respond to war and disasters sometimes respond disastrously — and it’s time to do something about it. That was the basic message of a three-day Humanitarian Health Conference at Harvard Sept. 6-8, which drew more than 120 emergency physicians, epidemiologists, and professional aid workers from 68 organizations.
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Campus & Community
Alexander H. Leighton of School of Public Health dies at 99
Professor Alexander H. Leighton, first chair of the Department of Behavioral Sciences (now part of the Department of Society, Human Development, and Health) at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), passed away on Aug. 11 at his home in Nova Scotia, Canada. He was 99.
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Health
Youngest girls spirited to brothels show highest HIV rates
Girls forced into the Indian sex trade at age 14 or younger show significantly higher rates of HIV infection than older girls and women similarly forced into prostitution, according to a new study that highlights for the first time the increased HIV risks faced by sex trafficked Nepalese girls and women.
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Health
Teen diets can hurt their lungs
For most teenagers in the United States and Canada, fish and fruit are not high on their delicious list. Also, many of them — about 20 percent of those under 18 — cough, wheeze, and suffer from asthma and bronchitis. Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) have found a connection between these…
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Campus & Community
Rappaport Institute names fellows
The Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston has awarded 12 summer public policy fellowships to graduate students from seven local universities, including five students from Harvard. The fellows will spend 10 weeks working on projects for public agencies and elected and appointed officials. Additionally, they will help design and carry out a seminar series for their…
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Health
Gene variants significantly increase risk for breast cancer
Newly identified inherited variants of a single gene increase breast cancer risk for women of European ancestry approximately 20 percent if they carry one copy of the gene and by 60 percent if they carry two copies. These variants, in the FGFR2 (Fibroblast Growth Factor Receptor 2) gene, were found in more than half of…
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Nation & World
HSPH study shows guns in homes linked to higher rates of suicide
In the first nationally representative study to examine the relationship between survey measures of household firearm ownership and state-level rates of suicide in the United States, researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) found that suicide rates among children, women, and men of all ages are higher in states where more households have…
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Nation & World
Global momentum for smoke-free society
In a perspective article in the April 12 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and the Association of European Cancer Leagues describe the growing momentum for indoor smoking bans in countries across the globe. They identify Ireland’s pioneering 2004 comprehensive indoor smoking ban…
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Health
Eradicating polio better option than control
Concerns about the high perceived costs of eradicating the relatively low number of polio cases worldwide have led to recent suggestions that it is time to shift from a goal of eradication to control: abandoning eradication and allowing wild poliovirus to continue to circulate, which proponents of control believe can sustain the low number of…
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Campus & Community
HSPH releases recommendations on smoking in films
The Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) recently released materials presented to the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) in a scientific briefing on the impact of youth smoking and the behavioral influence of films that depict tobacco use. The presentations (requested by the MPAA) were held in February in Los Angeles.
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Campus & Community
Students help the grass roots grow in New Orleans
Statistics may cause some people to grow bleary-eyed, but not a group of New Orleans residents at a recent community meeting where they listened to Harvard students talk about post-Hurricane Katrina recovery rates in their neighborhood.
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Campus & Community
Whittenberger, HSPH chair, dies at 93
James Whittenberger, who chaired the Department of Physiology at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) from 1948 to 1980, passed away March 17. He was 93 years old.
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Campus & Community
HSPH dean receives highest honor from Cyprus
Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) Dean Barry R. Bloom has been awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of Makarios III, which is the highest honor awarded in the Republic of Cyprus to individuals who have made a substantial contribution to the welfare of the Cypriot people.
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Health
Noninfectious pathway for HIV found by HSPH team
HIV is a crafty virus. It attacks the body by invading and taking over the very cells meant to protect humans from infection. Hiding within cells such as macrophages and lymphocytes, the virus uses the body’s natural machinery to replicate itself, destroying the immune system and leaving patients open to a range of debilitating and…
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Campus & Community
Betensky named HSPH professor of biostatistics
Rebecca Betensky has been promoted to professor of biostatistics at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH). She is also an associate biostatistician at Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital.
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Campus & Community
Lipsitch promoted professor of epidemiology at HSPH
Marc Lipsitch has been promoted to professor of epidemiology in the Department of Epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH). He first joined the School’s faculty as an assistant professor in 1999, becoming an associate professor in 2004.
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Health
HSPH study suggests taking wraps off drug safety data
For years, pharmaceutical companies have sought to restrict public access to drug safety data collected in clinical trials on the basis that it is proprietary information, arguing that competitors could use that information in the development of their own products. However, a number of recent cases of drugs found to have dangerous side effects after…
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Health
Spray-dry vaccine for TB developed
Bioengineers and public health researchers have developed a novel spray-drying method for preserving and delivering the most common tuberculosis (TB) vaccine. The low-cost and scalable technique offers several potential advantages over conventional freezing procedures, such as greater stability at room temperature and use in needle-free delivery. The spray-drying process could one day provide a better…
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Campus & Community
Elkan Blout, former HSPH academic affairs dean, 87
Elkan Blout, a former dean for academic affairs at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), National Medal of Science winner, and a leading contributor to the development of instant film, died on Dec. 20, 2006, at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. The cause was pneumonia. He was 87.
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Campus & Community
HSPH’s Andrew Spielman dies at 76
When Andrew Spielman was a graduate student in a malaria lab at Johns Hopkins University in 1952, his future was anything but certain. The use of DDT and other insecticides suggested a dramatic curtailing of the spread of mosquitoes – the carriers of the malaria pathogen and additional diseases. But, true to form, the insects…
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Health
Brain pollution: Common chemicals are damaging young minds
Learning disabilities. Cerebral palsy. Mental retardation. A “silent pandemic” of these and other neurodevelopmental disorders is under way owing to industrial chemicals in the environment that impair brain development in fetuses and young children. That’s the conclusion of a data analysis by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and the Mount Sinai…
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Campus & Community
University announces this academic year’s Zuckerman Fellows
Two former Peace Corps volunteers, two former Fulbright Scholars, six people who have started their own nonprofit organizations, the co-founder of a medical journal devoted to global health issues, and the sixth person in the 20th century to graduate from West Point as both first captain and top-ranked cadet are among this year’s Zuckerman Fellows.
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Campus & Community
Three HSPH professors honored at Joint Statistical Meetings
Each year, awards are given at the annual Joint Statistical Meetings. During this year’s meeting in Seattle, held Aug. 6-10, three Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) faculty members were honored: Professor of Biostatistics Xihong Lin; Henry Pickering Walcott Professor of Biostatistics Louise Ryan; and Marvin Zelen, professor of statistical science in the HSPH Department…
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Campus & Community
Shonkoff named professor at HSPH, GSE
Jack Shonkoff, the former dean of the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University, has been appointed professor of child health and development at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and at the Graduate School of Education (GSE).
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Campus & Community
Jim Kim, former HIV director at WHO, to head HSPH center
Jim Yong Kim, a former director of the World Health Organization’s HIV/AIDS unit, has been appointed director of the François-Xavier Bagnoud (FXB) Center for Health and Human Rights at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH). He will become François-Xavier Bagnoud Professor of Health and Human Rights at the School.