Human papillomavirus (HPV)-associated cancers occur more frequently, and sometimes with more deadly consequences, among Hispanics, blacks, and American Indian and Alaska Natives than among whites. A new study from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health finds that HPV vaccination is expected to reduce the cancer burden across all racial/ethnic groups. However, some disparities in…

James H. Ware, the Frederick Mosteller Professor of Biostatistics and associate dean for clinical and translational science at the Harvard Chan School, passed away April 26 after a long battle with cancer. Ware was a deeply respected and admired member of the Harvard Chan School community for nearly 40 years, having joined the faculty in 1979 after…

Reparations for historical injustices should extend to the Roma, who were slave laborers in parts of Romania for nearly 500 years, say two human rights researchers from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Roma slavery has left a legacy of troubling consequences, including poverty, homelessness, limited access to fundamental social and economic rights, social…

How can we best enhance the well-being of people across generations on Harvard’s campus, in the region, and the globe? Today, in a message to the Harvard community, Office for Sustainability Director Heather Henriksen announced the release of Harvard’s 2015 University-wide Sustainability Report detailing just some of the ways we’re seeking to answer this question, and posing other important questions…

Do survivors of childhood cancer return to normal health as they grow up? According to new research from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders Center, overall health-related quality of life in young adult survivors of childhood cancer resembles that of middle-aged adults. In a study published today in the…

The Nieman Foundation for Journalism, a leading global voice in professional journalism education and journalistic innovation for 79 years, has selected 24 journalists as members of the Nieman class of 2017. The group includes reporters, writers, correspondents, editors, producers, columnists, filmmakers, a photographer, a director, digital strategists, and news executives who work around the world.…

Projects led by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health students—one that trains Indian girls as peer health educators and another that aims to use technology to allow patients and their loved ones to interact with their hospital care in real-time—are among the 10 finalist teams in this year’s President’s Challenge. Now in its fifth…

Friends of distressed individuals can have a role in helping to reduce the nation’s rising suicide rate by showing compassion, optimism, and coaxing the distraught person to hand over guns, pills, and poison that they might use to kill themselves, said Catherine Barber, director of the Means Matter Campaign at the Harvard Injury Control Research…

Parents and kids recently came to the Ed Portal for a vacation-week workshop on making “cardboard automata,” kinetic toys, led by Harvard Physics Artist-in-Residence Kim Bernard. Bernard explained how the cardboard frames worked — a handle moves a wheel, which spins a disk, making a top rotate — and everyone got to work building their…

Three Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) graduates will receive alumni awards May 14 during Reunion Weekend. The HKS Alumni Board of Directors will present the following individuals with awards: Amara Konneh, M.C./M.P.A. ’08, will receive the Alumni Public Service Award. Malik Ahmad Jalal, M.P.A./I.D. ’11, will receive the Emerging Global Leader Award. Rudy Brioché, M.P.P. ’00,…

When news media report — and consumers read —  stories about the latest scientific and medical discoveries, more emphasis should be placed on studies that summarize a large volume of research, Acting Dean David Hunter,  Vincent L. Gregory Professor in Cancer Prevention at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, said in a April 21,…

Millennials hungry for deep connection are creating new spiritual communities even as they turn away from organized religion, the authors of two new studies said recently at Harvard Divinity School (HDS). As a result, secular groups are discovering the value of religious resources, and faith communities are innovating in new and unexpected ways. The remarks…

During the decade she spent as a physician assistant at Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program, Jill Roncarati saw, up close and personal, the ravages people suffered when they had no place to live. Cancers went undetected until they’d reached an advanced stage. Preventable complications from untreated diabetes emerged. Substance abuse problems dragged on…

April is National Distracted Driving Awareness Month. Jay Winsten is the Frank Stanton Director of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s Center for Health Communication and associate dean for health communication, which recently celebrated its 30th anniversary. He talks about the Center’s newest initiative: a campaign to prevent injuries and fatalities caused by “distracted driving,”…

Say you’ve got $30 million to develop a five-year pilot plan for preventing and treating thousands of women in India who suffer from a serious childbirth-related injury called an obstetric fistula. But you have just five days to come up with the plan. That was the challenge faced by five Harvard graduate students—two from Harvard…

The Office for the Arts at Harvard (OFA) and the Council on the Arts at Harvard, a standing committee of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, are pleased to announce the 11 recipients of the annual undergraduate arts prizes for 2016. The awards, presented to more than 130 undergraduates for the past 34 years, recognize…

On April 13, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) joined the World Health Organization (WHO) in confirming a link between Zika and the severe birth defect microcephaly. While officials at WHO also believe that there is enough evidence to conclude that the virus causes the autoimmune nervous disorder Guillain-Barré syndrome, the CDC is waiting…

While the world is as close as it has ever been to having a malaria vaccine, the fight to eradicate the disease is far from over. That was the consensus among experts in the field who gathered at a forum hosted by Harvard’s Defeating Malaria: From the Genes to the Globe initiative on April 6, 2016. Focused…

Being a person of color in America is bad for your health. That’s the theme of a new op-ed written by David Williams, Florence Sprague Norman and Laura Smart Norman Professor of Public Health at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Writing…

The late Nelson Mandela’s leadership skills and issues related to organ donation were among the topics Howard Koh, Harvey V. Fineberg Professor of the Practice of Public Health Leadership at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, discussed in an April 12, 2016 STAT news’ “Pulse of Longwood” interview. Koh returned in 2014 to Harvard…

The Institute of Museum and Library Services has awarded a major grant to the Harvard Law School Library Innovation Lab to further develop its Perma.cc tool to combat link rot. The IMLS grant awards over $700,000 to the Harvard Law School Library Innovation Lab, in cooperation with the Berkman Center for Internet & Society and…

Harvard University’s 24th annual Arts First festival, showcasing student and faculty creativity, will take place Thursday-Sunday, April 28-May 1. Sponsored by the Board of Overseers of Harvard College and produced by the Office for the Arts at Harvard with partners across the University, this year’s festival will feature more than 200 music, theater, dance, film,…

From smoking to the ravages of war, adolescents in developing countries face numerous threats to their health. Experts discussed these threats—and possible policy responses—at the third annual State of Global Health Symposium, hosted on March 29 by the Department of Global Health and Population at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Theresa Betancourt, associate…

Theresa Betancourt discussed her research on the role of conflict, adversity, and resiliency in children at the Sixth Annual Alice Hamilton Award Lecture on April 5 in Kresge Cafeteria. Following her talk, Betancourt, associate professor of child health and human rights and director of the Research Program on Children and Global Adversity at Harvard T.H.…

Dean James Ryan and the Harvard Graduate School of Education Speakers Committee announced today that Freeman Hrabowski, president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), will address graduates and their families at the 2016 Convocation ceremony on May 25. “Freeman Hrabowski is a singularly successful scholar and education leader. He has dedicated his career…

Although we often think of improvisation in an artistic context, improvisation in fact plays a central role in our lives, informing our behavior during social interactions, playing sports, and in moments of protest and civil disobedience. Harvard University Committee on the Arts (HUCA) is sponsoring a symposium, “Bending Toward Justice: Improvisation, Freedom, and the Arts,”…

The global cost of diabetes is now 825 billion dollars per year, according to the largest ever study of diabetes levels across the world. The research, which was led by scientists from Imperial College London, and involved Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, the World Health Organization, and nearly 500 researchers across the globe,…

Colonoscopies, mammograms, and childbirth services are the most searched-for medical services when it comes to cost information—and millennials with higher annual deductible spending are the most frequent comparison shoppers—according to an analysis of a large national health insurance plan database by researchers from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The study appears in the April…

Young, low-income transgender women with a history of unsafe sexual behavior face a high rate of mental health problems, according to a new study. The study, led by Sari Reisner, a researcher at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Harvard Medical School, and Boston Children’s Hospital, looked at mental health and substance abuse among…

The parasite responsible for a form of malaria now spreading from macaques to humans in South Asia could evolve to infect humans more efficiently, a step towards enhanced transmission between humans, according to a new study from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The researchers say that defining the means by which the Plasmodium…