By Austin Frakt Factors that affect health are often described as either “proximal” (downstream or directly affecting health) or “distal” (upstream or indirectly affecting health). For example, income is thought of as distal (upstream) because it doesn’t directly affect health. However, just as upstream water flows downstream, income is thought to influence proximal factors like where Continue reading [...]

By Austin Frakt In the United States, African American men have the worst health outcomes of any major demographic group. At age 45, their life expectancy is more than three years less than that of non-Hispanic Caucasian men and more than five years less than African American women. According to a 2017 study published in The Quarterly Journal of Economics, one-third and Continue reading [...]

Harvard Global Health Institute Awards Three Burke Global Health Fellowships Cambridge, MA – The Harvard Global Health Institute (HGHI) has announced three Burke Global Health Fellowships for 2019-20. The Fellowships, made possible by Harvard alumna Katherine States Burke, AB ’79, and her husband T. Robert Burke, support Harvard junior faculty engaged in global health research and Continue reading [...]

Harvard Global Health Institute Awards Three Burke Global Health Fellowships Continue reading [...]

By Austin Frakt While there is widespread understanding that the health system and other factors — social determinants — affect health, we know relatively little about their precise contributions to health differences across a population at a point in time or differences in health of a fixed population over time. Our just-released literature review provides a historical Continue reading [...]

By Austin Frakt A common way to assess how much various factors contribute to health is to estimate how much variation in health across the country is explained by each of those factors. But explaining variation is not as useful as many may think. This is the third and final post in a series on Nancy Krieger’s ‘s American Continue reading [...]