Shifting the open enrollment period for health insurance signups could boost enrollments and may help people make better health plan choices, according to a new study. The next open enrollment period for the health insurance marketplaces established by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is set for November 15, 2014 through February 15, 2015. But in a study…

Boston has installed more than 50 miles of bike lanes since 2007, and the number of pedal-powered commuters in the city, while only 2.1%, is more than three times the national average. To help urban planners continue to improve bike friendliness, researchers at Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) set out to determine the types of…

The Office of the Vice Provost for Advances in Learning is sponsoring a pilot program called the Faculty Academy to enable full-time Harvard faculty to get hands-on assistance with some of the techniques and concepts used in online learning experiences (such as those created through HarvardX) and in blended or flipped classrooms. Topics covered include…

More than 2,000 color images of Harvard’s architecture are now available to Harvard affiliates free and online through a library partnership with photographer Ralph Lieberman. Lieberman began photographing Harvard’s architecture in May 2012 for a project commissioned by Harvard College Library’s Fine Arts Library (FAL) and the Graduate School of Design’s Frances Loeb Library. The…

Aquaculture has become a booming industry in Chile, with salmon and other fish farmed in floating enclosures along the South Pacific coast. But as farmers densely pack these pens to meet demand, diseases can easily pass between fish — for example, an outbreak of infectious salmon anemia that emerged in 2007 caused the deaths of more than a…

In wind farms across North America and Europe, sleek turbines equipped with state-of-the-art technology convert wind energy into electric power. But tucked inside the blades of these feats of modern engineering is a decidedly low-tech core material: balsa wood. Like other manufactured products that use sandwich panel construction to achieve a combination of light weight…

Graduate students Aleem Ahmed and Caroline Mauldin are benefitting two countries with a single grain. Ahmed and Mauldin launched Love Grain last year to produce gluten-free cereals, pastas, and pancake and waffle mixes all made with teff — a high-protein, high-fiber grain that’s a staple in the Ethiopian diet. “I am impressed with Love Grain’s…

This year, June 29 marks the beginning of Ramadan, a 30-day period during which time devout Muslims around the world pray, reflect, and fast from sunrise to sunset. It is a time when religious tradition trumps business considerations. Shopkeepers reduce their hours and workers spend less time on the job and more time in the…

A well-timed and executed intervention with an under-performing math student can produce very substantive and positive results.  That is the finding in a new study co-authored by Harvard Kennedy School assistant professor Joshua Goodman.  “Intensive Math Instruction and Educational Attainment: Long-Run Impacts of Double-Dose Algebra” is published as part of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) Working Paper series. The…

The Food and Drug Administration recently announced that it will issue a proposal to the food industry aimed at encouraging voluntary sodium reductions in products. That’s good news, wrote Dariush Mozaffarian, associate professor in the Department of Epidemiology at Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), in a June 18 New York Daily News editorial. The average American consumes far more sodium each…

Anubhav and Arunika Agarwal share more than a marriage. Both earned MBAs focused on health management in their home country of India. Both worked in India and Afghanistan on health improvement projects. And both are about to graduate with master of public health degrees from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH). But even as each earns an M.P.H.…

Individual electrons in graphene are massless, but when they move together, it’s a different story. Graphene, a one-atom-thick carbon sheet, has taken the world of physics by storm—in part, because its electrons behave as massless particles. Yet these electrons seem to have dual personalities. Phenomena observed in the field of graphene plasmonics suggest that when…

“What keeps you up at night?” That was the question posed by Katie Lapp, executive vice president of Harvard, at the University’s inaugural Institutional Risk Management (IRM) Symposium on Tuesday, June 17, 2014. The symposium, sponsored by Harvard’s Office of Risk Management & Audit Services (RMAS), was part education, part strategy session, part therapy session…

Recent disease outbreaks have been traced to deliberately unvaccinated Americans—and anti-vaccine sentiment is a serious health concern. Barry Bloom, an infectious diseases expert at Harvard School of Public Health, thinks health care providers need better strategies—based on solid evidence—for communicating the importance of vaccination to hesitant and skeptical parents. Why is it so important that research be done on how…

According to a new survey, young adults are reporting better health since the passage of the Affordable Care Act. .in 2010, which allowed them to be covered on their parents’ plans through age 26. The study, co-authored by Kao-Ping Chua, a health policy Ph.D. student at Harvard and a pediatrician at Boston’s Children’s Hospital, and Benjamin Sommers, assistant…

Celebrating 25 years, Deputy Provost Margaret E. Newell awarded certificates of completion to the Administrative Fellows Program’s class of 2014 earlier this month. The program, administered by the Office of the Assistant to the President for Institutional Diversity and Equity, offers one year of talent management experience and professional development to mid-career professionals, especially members…

A new publication based at Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) aims to tackle tough, timely questions facing the public health community and provide a platform for debate, according to its editor and founder, newly minted HSPH graduate Andrew Boozary. The Harvard Public Health Review (HPHR) was launched on May 25 “in the spirit of the Harvard Law…

The American Society of International Law (ASIL) has announced its 10th class of Helton Fellowship winners who received a $2,000 micro-grant to peruse fieldwork or research on a variety of issues involving human rights, international criminal law, humanitarian affairs, and other international law areas. This year’s winners included one Harvard student, Shayak Sarkar, a Ph.D. candidate from…

A new poll by The Boston Globe and Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) finds, eight years into the state’s universal health insurance legislation enacted in 2006, 63% of Massachusetts residents support the law and 18% oppose it, while 7% are not sure, and 12% have not heard or read about the law. The percentage of residents supporting the law remains…

The Harvard Initiative for Learning and Teaching (HILT) Spark Grant application is now open. Apply at the HILT website Spark Grants are $5-$15K grants designed to help “spark” promising teaching and learning projects from idea to reality and position innovations for future success (see examples of funded projects). All benefits-eligible faculty, students, staff, and postdoctoral…

Victor De Gruttola, chair of the Department of Biostatistics and Henry Pickering Walcott Professor of Biostatistics at Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), recently answered three questions about the role of biostatistics in public health. What does a biostatistician do? A biostatistician’s work is driven by questions relating to the health of people—as individuals or members of population. For example,…

A spring 2013 Harvard Public Health magazine article titled “Guns & Suicide: The Hidden Toll” has won the Grand Gold Award for Best Article of the Year from the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE). The article topped 74 other entries in CASE Districts I and II, which include colleges and universities throughout New York, New…

Nanoparticles with microbial properties have proven effective in fighting bacteria; however, some may cause health risks to humans such as damage to the lungs. But now, researchers at Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) have developed a technique for making nanoparticles safer by suspending them in water. These droplets — called nanobombs by Philip Demokritou, associate…

Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) nutrition expert Walter Willett spoke about the value of fruits and vegetables during an interview with CBS Boston that aired June 5, 2014. Willett, Fredrick John Stare Professor of Epidemiology and Nutrition and chair of the Department of Nutrition, stated that while fruits and vegetables may not be as helpful in cancer prevention as previously thought,…

With a bachelor’s degree in mathematical biology, Nadia Abuelezam once considered herself a mathematician who used her skills to tackle public health problems. But after five years as a doctoral student at Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), she no longer identifies herself as a numbers person first: “I think I’m an epidemiologist at heart,” she says.…

The Library Leadership Team (LLT) approved funding for 19 Open Your Hidden Collections proposals, following recommendations of a screening group and review by the LLT and Sarah Thomas, vice president for the Harvard Library and Roy E. Larsen Librarian for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Read the full story to find out more about the funded…

Throughout April, the Gutman Library’s first-floor gallery space was home to a collection of collaboratively created works by underprivileged African American youths. The “Life Pieces to Masterpieces” exhibit, comprising 29 pieces, touched on subject matters ranging from Cirque du Soleil to absent fathers to Mitt Romney. (View full slideshow on the Library Portal.) The artists,…

Visitors to the Materials Collection at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design’s Frances Loeb Library will never be admonished to look without touching. In this tactile paradise, fingers—and imagination—are encouraged to roam free. Tucked in a long, narrow room off the stacks, the collection consists of 600-plus physical material samples, often with multiple pieces…

During Preservation Week (April 27 – May 3), the Library’s Weissman Preservation Center and Collections Care unit welcomed more than 75 visitors to learn more about methods, tools, and materials. Presses, cutters, solvents, brushes, needles, and paper patches galore were on display at Weissman, as well as some of the materials being treated, such as…

Spring may have played hide-and-seek this year, yet the community gardeners at Countway Library recently spent a sunny, windy afternoon at the Countway Community Garden prepping the soil and planting the year’s first seeds and seedlings. (View full slideshow on the library’s site.) The garden, one of three community gardens at Harvard, evolved from conversations in Countway’s “Salad Club”—a group of library staff…