Featured series 
Tag: Public Health
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Science & Tech
Battling climate change on all fronts
Harvard’s research spans the gamut from the sciences to the humanities, examining key questions about this critical challenge facing humanity.
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Health
Electronic medical records not a panacea?
The implementation of electronic health record systems may not be enough to significantly improve health quality and reduce costs. In the April 2010 issue of Health Affairs, Harvard researchers from the Mongan Institute for Health Policy at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) report finding that currently implemented systems have little effect on measures such as patient…
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Health
Childhood cancer survivors may face shortened lifespan, study reveals
Although more children today are surviving cancer than ever before, young patients successfully treated in the 1970s and 80s may live a decade less, on average, than the general population, according to a study by Harvard researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Harvard School of Public Health. Depending on the type of cancer, the…
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Health
Killer mushrooms!
It is thought to have been responsible for the deaths of emperors. In parts of California’s forests, it is everywhere. It is the deathcap mushroom, Amanita phalloides, so filled with toxins that a single cap can kill anyone who mistakenly eats it and does not get medical treatment. Because it looks like an edible mushroom,…
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Science & Tech
Media reporting HSPH professor to be named head of federal Medicare, Medicaid programs
Major media outlets are this weekend reporting that President Barack Obama has selected Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) professor Donald M. Berwick, MD, MPP, to head the federal government’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in the Department of Health and Human Services. The reports have not been confirmed by either the White House…
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Health
‘I thought a bomb went off’
As twilight fell over Port-au-Prince that first terrible night after Haiti’s January earthquake, Louise Ivers watched a strange cloud of dust settle over the city. Stirred by buildings collapsing as the late afternoon quake struck, the cloud was pierced only by sound, a rising chorus of screams from across the capital as the toll became…
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Health
War-related stress associated with increased risk of asthma
The trauma experienced during war may increase the risk of developing asthma, according to the results of a new study by Harvard researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), Harvard Medical School (HMS) and the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), and researchers at Kuwait University. The new study of Kuwaiti civilians who endured the…
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Health
Report from Haiti
Nearly a month after a massive earthquake devastated Haiti, paramedic Anthony Croese looked into the crowd outside a destroyed orphanage near Port-au-Prince and spotted an emaciated baby cradled in his father’s arms.
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Science & Tech
National Institute on Aging funds two new “Roybal Center” programs at Harvard
Harvard Medical School professor Nicholas Christakis, whose work focuses on social networks, and economics professor David Laibson, who examines how and why people make the decisions they do regarding savings and health behaviors, have been selected to receive five year Roybal Center grants, of about $1.5 million each, from the National Institute on Aging (NIA),…
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Campus & Community
FXB Center’s new director
Jennifer Leaning, a public health expert with extensive field experience in human rights crises, has been named director of the University’s François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH).
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Campus & Community
HSPH honors The New York Times
The Harvard School of Public Health’s (HSPH) Center for Health Communication honored The New York Times at a luncheon event at the Harvard Club of New York City on Dec. 4 for “distinguished journalism in public health.”
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Health
Obesity trends will snuff out health gains from decline in smoking
If obesity trends continue, the negative effect on the health of the U.S. population will overtake the benefits gained from declining smoking rates, according to a study by Harvard and University of Michigan researchers published today in the New England Journal of Medicine. “In the past 15 years, smoking rates have declined by 20 percent,…
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Campus & Community
Flu, Me? Public Remains Wary Of H1N1 Vaccine
Fewer than half of Americans say that they are planning to receive the new H1N1 swine flu vaccine, according to recent polls — a trend that is leaving many health professionals at a loss. For one thing, there are many different reasons why people say they are unlikely to get vaccinated. Nearly a third are…
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Health
What makes a successful society?
New research argues that the health of the population and the success or failure of many public health initiatives hinge as much on cultural and social factors as they do on doctors, facilities, or drugs.
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Campus & Community
Tweens convene for learning, support on body image
In a study about weight and body satisfaction, researchers measured the height and weight of 4,254 schoolchildren from Nova Scotia and asked them how much they agreed with the statement “I like the way I look.”
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Health
Not having health insurance is expensive
New findings from researchers at Harvard Medical School (HMS) demonstrate that individuals who were either continuously or intermittently uninsured between the ages of 51 and 64 cost Medicare more than those who had continuous insurance coverage in the years prior to Medicare eligibility. On average, those who were previously uninsured cost Medicare an additional $1,000…
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Health
School of Public Health professor advising feds on H1N1 policy
One thing certain about the flu is uncertainty, according to Marc Lipsitch, a professor of epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health and a prominent authority on the spread of infectious disease. The rise and rapid spread of H1N1 flu virus, known as swine flu, has kept Lipsitch busy in recent months. An expert…
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Campus & Community
Flu threats are tough to pin down
Harvard’s Lipsitch had a central role in developing the swine flu planning scenario authored by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. That report – which said that in a “plausible scenario,’’ H1N1 could kill 30,000 to 90,000 – emphasizes “this is a planning scenario, not a prediction….”
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Health
New study finds 45,000 deaths annually linked to lack of health coverage
Nearly 45,000 annual deaths are associated with lack of health insurance, according to a new study published online today by the American Journal of Public Health. That figure is about two and a half times higher than an estimate from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) in 2002. The study, conducted at Harvard Medical School and…
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Campus & Community
HSPH’s Bloom named recipient of national award
Barry R. Bloom, Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor and Joan L. and Julius H. Jacobson Professor of Public Health at the Harvard School of Public Health, will receive the 2009 Prix Galien USA Pro Bono Humanum award at a ceremony on Sept. 30.
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Campus & Community
Does Infection Boost Prostate Cancer Risk?
In the new study, Jennifer Stark of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston and colleagues analyzed blood samples from 673 men with prostate cancer who participated in the Physicians’ Health Study, a large, ongoing study examining a variety of health issues.
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Campus & Community
Business not ready for flu, study says
Many American businesses are unprepared to deal with widespread employee absenteeism in the event of a swine flu outbreak, a Harvard School of Public Health study says. The survey, released yesterday, found that two-thirds of more than 1,000 businesses questioned said they could not maintain normal operations if half their workers were out for two…
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Health
Drug for MS reactivates virus causing deadly brain disease
The virus responsible for progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML), a rare brain disease that typically affects AIDS patients and other individuals with compromised immune systems, has been found to be reactivated in multiple sclerosis patients being treated with natalizumab (Tysabri). The findings by Harvard researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and collaborators at Johns…
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Campus & Community
PCB risk feared at older N.E. schools
“It’s contradictory . . . because you don’t have to test, but if you do and you find it over 50 parts per million, then this whole cascade of regulatory requirements kicks in,’’ said Robert Herrick, senior lecturer at the Harvard School of Public Health…
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Health
Low-carb diets linked to atherosclerosis and impaired blood vessel growth
Even as low-carbohydrate/high-protein diets have proven successful at helping individuals rapidly lose weight, little is known about the diets’ long-term effects on vascular health. Now, a study led by team of Harvard researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) provides some of the first data on this subject, demonstrating that mice placed on a…
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Health
NIH renews Harvard Center for AIDS Research grant for another five years
The National Institutes of Health has renewed for five years – and $18.1 million – the funding for the Harvard University Center for AIDS Research (Harvard CFAR). Harvard is one of only 20 NIH CFAR sites in the U.S. and first received the designation in 2004. The award, under the umbrella of the Harvard Initiative…
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Health
Economy shaping health care reform effort
Political and philosophical differences aside, it’s the economic crisis that’s driving the current national health care reform debate. “Every day the president gets an envelope [that] says, ‘Whoa! Bigger [deficit] this day than yesterday,’” noted Robert J. Blendon, professor of health policy and management, speaking at the Harvard School of Public Health on Tuesday. Couple…
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Health
Lifestyle culprit in increase in cardiovascular disease
Despite the perception that cardiovascular disease is a problem of industrialized countries, it is the leading cause of death everywhere except Africa, where it is eclipsed by the raging AIDS epidemic, experts gathered at Harvard Medical School (HMS) said Wednesday. Authorities on cardiovascular disease from around the world attended a daylong conference sponsored by the…