Harvard Public Health NOW

PBS Series on Health Disparities to Air with Major HSPH Contributions

The PBS-viewing public will have the opportunity to learn more about what HSPH faculty have long documented: racial and economic inequities may help explain why the United States — one of the richest countries in the world — ranks among the least healthy industrialized nations. These dimensions and their links to health will be investigated in a four-hour PBS series that begins on March 27 at 10 p.m. called "Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making Us Sick?"  HSPH faculty and alumni served as advisors to the series and appear on camera.

Deriving Value from Health Care Funding

Access to health care can be achieved across the U.S., asserted David Cutler, Dean for the Social Sciences in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard, so long as the funding is made possible. In the long run, he noted, the value derived from the amount of funding spent on health care is an important issue. 

Global Fund Proposed for Drugs for Neglected Diseases

Columbia University Professor Thomas Pogge envisions a global fund that will reward drug companies for developing medications to fight diseases of the poor in exchange for giving up patent protection rights. He spoke at HSPH on February 15 in Snyder Auditorium.

MRSA Bacteria Is Common and Handwashing Is Important Preventive Measure, Says Speaker

A 27-year-old commercial skin diver goes to a doctor with painful boils on her leg and buttocks. She had borrowed a colleague's wet suit for long repeated dives. Tests reveal she has community-acquired MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus). Nasal cultures are negative, indicating that she is not a chronic carrier.

The skin diver is actually a simulated patient. Her virtual case was presented at a talk about the bacteria MRSA at HSPH on February 1. The talk was organized by the Environmental and Occupational Medicine and Epidemiology program in the HSPH Department of Environmental Health.