Featured series 
Tag: Public Health
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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
Half of us suffer from mental illness, survey finds
About half of all the people in the United States will develop one or more mental disorders in their lifetimes, according to the latest national survey. During any year, one of every four people in this country fits the definition of “mentally ill.” Most of these disorders are mild, the census-like survey found. Mild or…
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Campus & Community
HSPH joins battle over America’s waistline
The Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) weighed in on the battle over America’s bulging middle Thursday (May 26), with a panel of health experts saying a government study showing that being somewhat overweight may actually save lives is flawed and sends a dangerous message. The event, “Weighing the Evidence: A Forum to Examine the…
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Health
Study finds men who consume more dairy products have lower incidence of diabetes
A report from researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) – the first large-scale, prospective examination of a relationship between dairy intake and diabetes risk – analyzes data from the HSPH-based Health Professionals Follow-up Study. “Our study found that men consuming higher levels of…
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Health
MTV, Harvard Web study reveals adolescent disconnect: Unaware of hearing peril, yet willing to listen
While many adolescents and young adults expose themselves to loud music for entertainment, the researchers hypothesized that these individuals might not be aware that over-exposure could result in hearing loss. To find out, a survey was designed by the researchers and posted by the MTV Web site for three days. The survey included questions about…
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Health
Weight status of children ages 8 to 15 predicts obesity and high blood pressure in adulthood
“We have known that kids who are overweight or obese have a higher risk for being overweight or obese as adults. But in this paper, we show that even children in the high normal weight range have an elevated risk of becoming overweight or obese as adults,” said lead author Alison Field, assistant professor of…
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Health
How often should women get mammograms?
With screening guidelines and financial coverage varying among health systems and insurers – sometimes dramatically – a new mathematical model provides quantitative predictions of the mortality benefits, on average, in populations of women over the course of 40 years. “We’re not advocating any particular interval for mammography screening,” says Sandra Lee, a biostatistician at Dana-Farber…
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Health
Phobic anxiety increases risk of sudden cardiac death in women
According to lead author Christine M. Albert, M.D., M.P.H., an epidemiologist at BWH and an electrophysiologist and cardiologist at MGH, “Phobic anxiety is associated with coronary heart disease risk factors. However, in this study, in which these risk factors were controlled, we found a correlation between higher levels of phobic anxiety and death from CHD,…
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Health
Weight gain and obesity linked to higher risk of kidney stones
“Our study demonstrated that multiple measures of larger body size, including larger waist circumference, higher weight, and higher body mass index, were related to an elevated risk of kidney stones,” said Eric Taylor, M.D., a BWH researcher and nephrologist. The data are based on a study of approximately 45,000 men and more than 200,000 women…
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Health
Safer cigarettes would cut fire deaths if made available
Researchers at Harvard School of Public Health, funded by the American Legacy Foundation, compared the physical properties of cigarettes sold in New York with cigarettes of the same brands sold in Massachusetts and California. The researchers found: • That while not perfectly self-extinguishing, New York cigarettes were far less likely to burn to the end…
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Health
One third of U.S. adults use complementary and alternative medicines
The continued widespread use of individual and multiple CAM therapies underscores the need to rigorously evaluate the safety, efficacy, and cost-effectiveness of these approaches, according to the study’s lead author Hilary Tindle, Harvard Medical School (HMS) research fellow, and co-author David Eisenberg, director of the Division for Research and Education in Complementary and Integrative Medical…
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Campus & Community
Warming called a global ‘experiment’
Climate scientist Daniel Schrag says that human-caused climate change is inevitable, though scientists don’t know exactly how severe or even exactly what its effects will be. Schrag said the public health effects related to climate change would probably be most severe in poorer nations. Though climate effects will be experienced in richer nations, those countries…
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Health
Grandkids can make you sick
A study by researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health and Harvard Medical School shows that women who care for grandchildren more than nine hours a week have a 55 percent greater chance of developing coronary heart disease than those women who don’t provide such care. Though the study didn’t probe the reasons behind…
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Health
For-profit health plans did not restrict Medicare beneficiaries’ use of high-cost operative procedures
Testing the hypothesis that rates of use of 12 high-cost procedures would be lower in for-profit health plans than in not-for-profit plans, researchers analyzed Medicare HEDIS (Health Plan Employer Data and Information Set) data on more than 3.7 million Medicare beneficiaries 65 years of age or older who were enrolled in 254 health plans in…
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Health
New study identifies inhibitor of anthrax toxin
Findings by a research team could eventually lead to the development of a protease inhibitor drug, which in combination with antibiotics could be used to treat anthrax cases later in the disease, at a point when antibiotics alone are no longer effective. “Unlike most types of bacteria, bacillus anthracis has the ability to produce large…
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Science & Tech
More TV means fewer veggies
Harvard researchers tracked 548 sixth and seventh graders from public schools for 19 months. The children were asked to fill out surveys to determine the time they spent per day watching television, movies or videos; time spent per day on physical activities and how many fruits and vegetables they consumed daily. The average amount of…
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Campus & Community
Designing solutions to fresh water shortage
Robert France, associate professor of landscape ecology at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, is a scientist who has studied the effect of environmental degradation of various plants and animals. Urban runoff is one of France’s areas of expertise. His knowledge gives him a very different view of the rainwater that flows down our sewers…
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Health
Physicians report trouble obtaining specialty services for uninsured
A research team surveyed more than 2,000 physicians at U.S. academic health centers who had provided direct patient care during the preceding year. Among the questions asked were whether the physicians were unable to admit uninsured patients or had to limit such patients’ hospital care; how often they could obtain specialty referrals or advanced services…
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Health
Hold that penicillin
“The threat of resistance to antibiotics by bacteria increased so dramatically from the 1970s to the mid-1990s that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) labeled it a national public health crisis,” said Jonathan Finkelstein of the Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care in Boston. The CDC has called on doctors to…
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Health
Close interaction seen between blood vessel development and fat tissue formation
Findings from researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital could eventually help to solve problems ranging from cancer, to obesity, to the development of replacement organs. The findings involve the key physiological processes of angiogenesis, the growth of new blood cells, and adipogenesis, the development and growth of fat cells, which appear to be so closely interwoven…
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Health
Stricter alcohol policy enforcement may curb college drinking
A study consisted of 11 public schools, including three state university campuses and eight state colleges that fall under the purview of the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education (MBHE). In each of the 11 schools, the dean of students, chief of campus security, and a representative sample of students completed surveys about their campus’ alcohol…
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Health
Tobacco deaths a developing problem
Research published in the Sept. 13, 2003 issue of the medical journal The Lancet shows that global tobacco deaths were about 4.8 million in 2000, with about 2.4 million each in developing and industrialized nations. “The bottom line is that tobacco at this point in time is no longer [just] a Western problem,” said Harvard…
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Health
Black lung redux
There are approximately 500,000 asphalt workers in the United States today who have significantly increased risk of lung, stomach, bladder, and nonmelanoma skin cancer – yet little is known about this particular occupational hazard, and it was rarely studied until the early 1990s. Mike McClean, a researcher at the Harvard School of Public Health, is…
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Campus & Community
Students fly in NASA’s weightless environment
Harvard Extension School students Mario Garcia, So-One Hwang, Lily Kang, and Manoj Ramachandran in July 2003 experienced the weightlessness of microgravity through NASA’s Reduced Gravity Student Flight Opportunities Program, which provides research opportunities for college students aboard its Boeing KC-135A aircraft based in Houston. The Harvard team proposed to research the effectiveness of a one-person…
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Science & Tech
Climate, asthma connected, according to research
Christine Rogers, a research associate at the Harvard School of Public Health, measures particulates – pollen grains and fungal spores – in outdoor air and correlates levels with asthma events. She also examines how those particulate levels might change over time because of global warming. “One of the most predictable effects of global warming is…
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Health
Close adherence to traditional Mediterranean diet promotes longevity
The traditional Mediterranean diet features an abundance of vegetables, legumes, fruits, nuts and cereals and regular use of olive oil (monounsaturated fats), moderate amounts of fish and dairy products (mostly yogurt or cheese), small amounts of red meat (low intake of saturated fats) and moderate consumption of alcohol, usually in the form of wine and…
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Health
Study shows acrylamide in baked and fried foods does not increase risk of certain cancers in humans
Animal and laboratory studies in the past have indicated that acrylamide, a potentially carcinogenic substance, is found in elevated levels in certain foods, such as potato chips, French fries, cereals and biscuits. Acrylamide appears to form as a result of a reaction between specific amino acids and sugars found in foods when heated to high…
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Science & Tech
Strong public support for spraying against mosquitoes
The opening study of the Project on Biological Security and the Public found that one-third (33 percent) of Americans who live in areas where there are a lot of mosquitoes think they or a family member is very (9 percent) or somewhat (24 percent) likely to get sick from the virus in the next 12…