Challenges faced by Brazil to reduce pollution and upgrade the slums of Rio de Janeiro prior to the August 2016 Summer Olympics illustrates the struggles faced when trying to protect the respiratory health of approximately a billion people living in slums globally, Joseph Allen, assistant professor of exposure assessment science at Harvard T.H. Chan School…

Consuming higher amounts of unsaturated fats was associated with lower mortality, according to a study from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. In a large study population followed for more than three decades, researchers found that higher consumption of saturated and trans fats was linked with higher mortality compared with the same number of…

Harvard Law School and the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University are pleased to announce that Michael R. Klein, LL.M. ’67 has made a generous gift of $15 million to the Berkman Center. In recognition, the Center will now be known as the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. “This gift…

As we age, every stumble or fall comes with a risk—a risk that is even greater for those 10 million people in the U.S. who have osteoporosis, a skeletal disease characterized by low bone mass, poor bone quality, and fractures. Each year, 1.5 million bone fractures are attributed to osteoporosis, including 350,000 hip fractures. But hip…

Albert Hofman has been named the Stephen B. Kay Family Professor of Public Health and Clinical Epidemiology and Chair of the Department of Epidemiology  at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, effective July 1. Hofman comes to Harvard from the Erasmus Medical Center, Rotterdam, Netherlands, where he was Professor of Epidemiology and Chair of…

John Jackson, S.D. ’13, and Sonja Swanson, S.D. ’14, are the winners of the 2016 Kenneth Rothman Epidemiology Prize. The award is given annually for the best paper published in Epidemiology in the preceding year, and was announced in the journal’s July 2016 issue. It was presented June 23 at the Epidemiology Congress of the…

Women who attend religious services at least once a week may have a lower risk of suicide than those who never attend services, according to a new study led by researchers at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The study was published online June 29, 2016 in JAMA Psychiatry. Tyler VanderWeele, professor of epidemiology,…

The trillions of microbes that transfer from people to surfaces could provide an early warning system for the emergence of public health threats such as a flu outbreak or a rise in antibiotic resistance, according to a study from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The researchers took to the Boston subway system to find…

Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health recently welcomed 10 new fellows into the Multidisciplinary International Research Training (MIRT) program. MIRT is a national program aimed at encouraging students who are members of underrepresented minority groups to pursue careers in biomedical and behavioral science research and it provides placement and funding for summer international field…

As the gun control debate reignited following the mass shooting at a nightclub in Florida, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public expert David Hemenway spoke to several news outlets about the state of firearms research. He said that a Congressional ban on using federal funds to “promote gun control” has had a chilling effect on…

Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus called on health ministers at the fifth annual Ministerial Forum for Health Ministers at Harvard to think of health as an integral part of economic development and to recognize productive work by women and young people as a critical factor in advancing national health and economic growth in their nations. Making…

It is unlikely that the influx of travelers to Brazil for the Olympic Games in August will accelerate the spread of the Zika virus, according to Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Professor Ashish Jha. In an editorial published June 19 in the Washington Post, Jha offers support for the conclusion by a World…

After months of vitriolic campaigns, on June 23 voters began to emerge from polling stations throughout the United Kingdom having cast their ballots in a nationwide referendum on European Union (EU) membership. The possibility of a British exit, or “Brexit,” has shined a spotlight on the institutional, political, and economic woes of the EU and…

As an undergraduate working in malaria researcher Dyann Wirth’s lab at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Caleb Irvine was curious why malaria transmission was on the uptick in the Thiès region of Senegal, in spite of efforts to control the disease there. In July 2014, he traveled there to study the DNA of…

Poor people around the world who depend on seafood for a significant portion of their diet are likely to suffer malnutrition if global fisheries continue to decline, according to new research from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The study was published in Nature on June 15, 2016. Lead author Christopher Golden, a research…

A new study suggests that so-called “pay-for-performance” programs—in which hospitals are financially rewarded for better patient outcomes and penalized for worse outcomes—may not be working. Ashish Jha, senior author of the study, discusses the implications. Pay-for-performance programs have been touted as an important way to improve hospital care, but your study suggested otherwise. Did this…

Deborah Azrael, a gun violence researcher at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, spoke to the Harvard Gazette for a June 14, 2016 article on addressing incidents of mass violence such as the recent night club massacre in Orlando. Mass shootings can be thought of as a contagion, said Azrael, who is research director…

While transgender people have increasingly received public recognition, there has been little concerted effort to support and improve their health, according to a Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health researcher and other authors of a special Series published in The Lancet. Compiled with input of members of the transgender community, the Series provides an…

Prostate cancer screening with prostate-specific antigen (PSA) has been shown to reduce death and the spread of prostate cancer to other parts of the body, but the PSA test remains highly controversial as it frequently leads to over diagnosis and over treatment of men who may not be at risk. Smarter screening strategies that can…

Eating more whole grains may reduce the risk of premature death, according to a new meta-analysis by researchers from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The study found that people who ate the most whole grains (70 grams/day, about 4 servings), compared with those who ate little or no whole grains, had a lower…

Renovation of the Smith Campus Center is in full swing. To help reduce disruption to building tenants and visitors, some of the construction work will need to be undertaken in the evenings and on weekends. As a result of this construction, which will include periods when power and other services to the building must be…

On June 13th, the Harvard Global Health Institute and the Berkman Center for Internet & Society will bring together more than sixty leaders from the pharmaceutical industry, foundations, civil society, academia, and government for a conference to develop actionable solutions for increasing access to medicines and promoting innovation to help the world’s poor. Despite recent…

The Ceramics Program at the Office for the Arts at Harvard recently installed a ceramic mural created by students of instructor Allison Newsome for the CHA Somerville Hospital, part of the Cambridge Health Alliance. Created by 17 artists over two semesters, the salon-style mural, titled “Homeostasis,” incorporates life-reinforcing imagery such as fruit and flowers, rendered…

The Maternal Health Task Force (MHTF) at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health released a new Obstetric Emergency Drills Training Kit online June 2, 2016. The manual and accompanying video and other materials aim to help health care providers anywhere in the world prepare to safely manage obstetric complications when they occur. The materials…

Exposure to certain microbes as young children may help prevent autoimmune disorders later in life, according to a new study by researchers at the Broad Institute. The findings suggest that people whose immune systems receive this early “education” are less likely to develop the extreme immune system reactions that characterize disorders such as type 1…

One-quarter of the world’s tuberculosis cases are in India, and the disease kills one Indian every 90 seconds. But India—strong in TB research and in technological and pharmaceutical capacity—has the potential to make great progress against TB, say the authors of a June 8, 2016 article in the Huffington Post. India has the highest number…

Nearly all U.S. regions stand to gain economic benefits from power plant carbon standards that set moderately stringent emission targets and allow a high level of compliance flexibility, according to a new study by scientists from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Syracuse University, Resources for the Future, and the Harvard Forest, Harvard University…

In developing countries, one-third of children three and four years old don’t reach basic milestones in cognitive and/or socioemotional growth, according to a new study from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, funded by the Government of Canada through Grand Challenges Canada. The study authors estimate that 80.8 million of the roughly 240 million…

Harvard has received an Outstanding Case Study Award from the Sustainable Purchasing Leadership Council for its work to phase out harmful chemical flame retardants in the furniture it purchases. The awards recognize organizations for documenting their sustainable purchasing efforts in detailed case studies enable others to follow their lead. As part of an initiative to…

The Harvard Graduate School of Education’s 2015 renovation of Longfellow Hall has received LEED Platinum certification – the highest rating possible—from the U.S. Green Building Council.  “This new energy efficient, healthy space will enhance productivity and improve the experience for our students, faculty, and staff by allowing for better collaboration and connection,” says Chief of…