Better Off

Working from home has its perks: Better coffee, easy commute, no fluorescent lighting. But, as any home office worker can tell you, there are also downsides: No more office social hours, no more ergonomic chairs, and no more quiet train rides to catch up on your podcasts. In this episode of the Better Off podcast, we’ll ask: Is working from home good or bad for our health?  

Guests

Eileen McNeely, Founder and Executive Director of SHINE, the Health & Sustainability Initiative at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

• Read a study by Eileen McNeely and SHINE researchers, exploring associations between the importance of well-being domains and the subsequent experience of well-being.
• Read an article by Eileen McNeely discussing business as a platform for human flourishing.

Bethany Barone Gibbs, Associate Professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at West Virginia University

• Read a study by Bethany Barone Gibbs and other researchers who explored COVID-19's impact on sedentary behaviors.

Credits

Host/producer: Anna Fisher-Pinkert

The Better Off team: Kristen Dweck, Elizabeth Gunner, Pamela Reynoso, Stephanie Simon, and Ben Wallace

Audio engineering and sound design: Kevin O'Connell

Additional research: Kate Becker

As COVID-19 swept through American prisons and jails in 2020, wardens scrambled to keep prisoners and corrections officers from getting sick. One strategy was to increase solitary confinement. Health experts warn that solitary confinement increases the risk of mental illness and suicide, but the practice continues. Today, about 2 million people are incarcerated in the U.S. In this episode of the Better Off podcast, we'll ask: Is it possible to build a corrections system that accounts for their health and safety? 

Guests:

Jasmine D Graves, Ph.D. student, Population Health Sciences program, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Monik Jimenez, Assistant Professor in the Department of Epidemiology, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Credits:

Host/producer: Anna Fisher-Pinkert

The Better Off team: Kristen Dweck, Elizabeth Gunner, Pamela Reynoso, Stephanie Simon, and Ben Wallace

Audio engineering and sound design: Kevin O'Connell

Additional research: Kate Becker

It’s estimated that half a million Americans are experiencing homelessness. Even a brief period of housing insecurity can make existing health issues worse, and bring up new physical and mental traumas. Doctors and nurses who help patients navigate these issues have a prescription: More housing, and more services. Is it possible to end chronic homelessness, even as eviction moratoriums end and rents increase? And is a housing-first model the best way to achieve that goal?

Guests:

Ana Rausch, Vice President of Program Operations at Coalition for the Homeless of Houston/Harris County

Kimberley Richardson, therapist

Maggie Sullivan, family nurse practitioner, Boston Health Care for the Homeless and instructor and human rights fellow, FXB Center, Harvard University

Credits:

Host/producer: Anna Fisher-Pinkert

The Better Off team: Kristen Dweck, Elizabeth Gunner, Pamela Reynoso, Stephanie Simon, and Ben Wallace

Audio engineering and sound design: Kevin O'Connell

Additional research: Kate Becker

What does a plate of healthy food look like? Everyone has an opinion – from doctors to dieticians to wellness experts. But advice on what to eat often ignores a big factor in how and why we make meals: Culture. Americans who trace their heritage back to Latin America or Africa often get messages that discourage them from seeing their home foods as healthy. In this episode, we’ll ask: Are we better off when diet and nutrition advice is informed by culture?

Guests:

Josiemer Mattei, Donald and Sue Pritzker Associate Professor of Nutrition, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Dalina Soto, registered dietician, Your Latina Nutritionist

Credits:

Host/producer: Anna Fisher-Pinkert

The Better Off team: Kristen Dweck, Elizabeth Gunner, Stephanie Simon, and Ben Wallace

Audio engineering and sound design: Kevin O'Connell

Additional research: Kate Becker

Guests:  

Shruthi Mahalingaiah, assistant professor of environmental reproductive and women's health, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Tamarra James-Todd, Mark and Catherine Winkler associate professor of environmental reproductive epidemiology, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Visit our website to learn more about our guests, and to find a full transcript.

Credits:

Host/producer: Anna Fisher-Pinkert

The Better Off team: Kristen Dweck, Elizabeth Gunner, Stephanie Simon, and Ben Wallace

Audio engineering and sound design: Kevin O'Connell

Additional research: Kate Becker

40 million American homes cook their meals with natural gas. But most people don’t think of the little blue flame on their gas range as the end of a very long natural gas pipeline. New research shows that gas stoves pollute our indoor air, but Americans have yet to embrace alternatives, like induction stoves. In this episode, Better Off asks: When it comes to our health, are we better off giving up on natural gas?

Guests:  

Drew Michanowicz, senior scientist, PSE Healthy Energy

Brady Seals, manager, Carbon-free Buildings Program, RMI

Jon Kung, chef

Visit our website to learn more about our guests, and to find a full transcript.

Credits:

Host/producer: Anna Fisher-Pinkert

The Better Off team: Kristen Dweck, Elizabeth Gunner, Stephanie Simon, and Ben Wallace

Audio engineering and sound design: Kevin O'Connell

Additional research: Kate Becker

What makes a healthy home? 

In 2022, that question feels more important than ever. What are the right foods to eat? The least-toxic shampoos and sunscreens? The best way to prevent loneliness while working from home? On Season 2 of the Better Off podcast, we’ll look at the research behind some of those big questions. We’ll also ask what happens to our health when “home” is a tent encampment, or a 6x9 solitary jail cell.

Through six new episodes, host Anna Fisher-Pinkert will talk to leading public health experts about the questions she’s had on her mind as a health communicator, a mom, and a person with more than a little skepticism about the things our culture tells us are “healthy.”

Better Off: Home starts November 2. Subscribe to get episodes as soon as they drop. Visit hsph.me/better-off to learn more about this season.

This episode was first released in December, 2020.

Until the COVID-19 pandemic, most of us didn't think about indoor air very much, if at all. But healthy buildings expert Joseph Allen has been studying indoor air for years. He says that since we spend 90% of lives inside, we need to do more to make our offices, homes, and schools places where we can breathe easy.

Guest: Joseph Allen, Associate Professor of Exposure Assessment Science, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

For a full transcript of this episode, visit our website. Subscribe to get new episodes of Better Off in your podcast feed every other Wednesday.

Has your office, school, or apartment building made changes since the pandemic? How have those changes affected your health? Share your thoughts with us on Twitter and Instagram.

Read more about Joseph Allen’s research along with all the latest news from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health at hsph.harvard.edu/news.

To read reports from Joseph Allen and his colleagues, visit ForHealth.org.

Music in this episode:

Ketsa – Sabre

Blue Dot Sessions – Milkwood

Blue Dot Sessions – Calisson

Ketsa – Onwards Upwards

Eating disorders affect a population the size of the state of Texas, cost the economy tens of billions of dollars, and kill 10,000 Americans per year. If eating disorders are so common, expensive, and deadly, why don't we talk about them more? Bryn Austin, director of the Strategic Training Initiative for the Prevention of Eating Disorders (STRIPED), says we need to start by getting rid of our "sticky" stereotypes about who is affected by eating disorders.

Guest: S. Bryn Austin, professor in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Harvard Chan School, a faculty member at Boston Children's Hospital, and director of the Strategic Training Initiative for the Prevention of Eating Disorders (STRIPED).

During the earliest days of the pandemic, younger people were told to protect the older adults in their lives from COVID-19 by isolating at home. Concerns about the virus and pandemic restrictions have taken a toll on everyone's mental well-being. But it turns out that when it comes to mental health, older adults might actually be faring better than their children and grandchildren. On this episode of Better Off, aging and mental health expert Oliva Okereke explains why.

Guest: Olivia Okereke, associate professor in the department of epidemiology at Harvard Chan School, director of geriatric psychiatry in the department of psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital, and associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

For a full transcript of this episode, visit our website. Subscribe to get new episodes of Better Off in your podcast feed every other Wednesday.

Read more about Mary Bassett's work, as well as the latest news from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health at hsph.harvard.edu/news.

Music in this episode:

Ketsa – Sabre

Blue Dot Sessions – Willow Belle

Blue Dot Sessions – Selena Leica

Blue Dot Sessions – Trenton Channel

Ketsa – Onwards Upwards

In a special bonus episode, recorded a day before Juneteenth was made a federal holiday, we listen in on a conversation between Opal Lee, an activist and teacher often called the "grandmother of Juneteenth," and Harvard University professors Annette Gordon-Reed and Evelyn Hammonds.

Guests:

Opal Lee, Activist

Annette Gordon-Reed, Carl M. Loeb University Professor, Harvard University; author, On Juneteenth

Evelynn Hammonds, Barbara Gutmann Rosenkrantz Professor of the History of Science and Professor of African and African-American Studies, Harvard University

For a full transcript of this episode or to watch the full conversation, visit our website. 

Subscribe via your favorite podcast app.

Music in this episode:

Ketsa – Sabre

Ketsa – Onwards Upwards

This spring, public health officials have been laser-focused on getting more Americans vaccinated against COVID-19. So why do racial disparities persist around vaccination? And once more Americans are vaccinated, how do we ensure that Black and Latino families aren’t left vulnerable to future public health crises? In the latest episode of Better Off, Mary Bassett talks about the historical roots of health inequities, and the big changes needed to close those gaps.

Guest: Mary T. Bassett, director of the François Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard University.

For a full transcript of this episode, visit our website. Subscribe to get new episodes of Better Off in your podcast feed every other Wednesday.

Read more about Mary Bassett's work, as well as the latest news from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health at hsph.harvard.edu/news.

Music in this episode:

Ketsa – Sabre

Blue Dot Sessions – Lupi

Blue Dot Sessions – The Caspian Sea

Blue Dot Session – An Oddly Formal Dance

Ketsa – Onwards Upwards

When Aaron (Ari) Bernstein met his first pediatric patient infected with COVID-19, he realized that this little girl's health was connected to an infected bat on the other side of the world. Climate change and deforestation have made it easier for new pathogens to spread across the globe. On this episode of Better Off, Ari Bernstein explains how protecting the environment could also secure the future of our own species.

Guest: Aaron (Ari) Bernstein, Interim Director of The Center for Climate, Health and the Global Environment (Harvard Chan C-CHANGE).

More about climate and health

• Harvard Chan C-CHANGE
• Climate Optimist newsletter

In the 1980's, there were millions of cases of Guinea worm disease across the globe, mostly in rural Africa. Donald Hopkins, MPH '70, has spent 40 years working to eradicate this painful and debilitating disease – and he's had remarkable success. Last year, there were only 27 cases worldwide. In the latest episode of Better Off, Donald Hopkins talks about eradicating a disease that many people thought wasn't worth fighting.

Watch the inaugural Donald Hopkins Scholars Lecture.

Learn more about The Donald Hopkins Predoctoral Scholars Program.

More about Donald Hopkins:

Fierce Optimism, Harvard Public Health Magazine, 2018

The Eradicator: Donald Hopkins

Guest: Donald Hopkins, MD, MPH '70,  former director of all health programs at The Carter Center, currently the special advisor for Guinea worm eradication at The Carter Center.

For a full transcript of this episode, visit our website. Subscribe to get new episodes of Better Off in your podcast feed.

Read more about the latest news from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health at hsph.harvard.edu/news. 

The technology that is helping us combat COVID-19 is also poised to help us tackle tough infectious and non-infectious diseases. Immunologist Sarah Fortune explains how these vaccines work, and how the mRNA platform could transform the prevention and treatment of deadly diseases.

In this episode of "Better Off," Harvard Chan School immunologist Sarah Fortune takes on common misconceptions about COVID-19 vaccines, and discusses the ways that mRNA technology could be used to create vaccines for diseases like TB and cancer.

Guest: Sarah Fortune, John LaPorte Given Professor of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Chair, Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

For a full transcript of this episode, visit our website. Subscribe to get new episodes of Better Off in your podcast feed every other Wednesday.

Read more about Sarah Fortune's work, as well as the latest news from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health at hsph.harvard.edu/news. 

Music in this episode:

Ketsa – Sabre

Blue Dot Sessions – St. Augustine Red

Blue Dot Sessions – Solear Interlude

Blue Dot Sessions – Ewa Valley

When Antón Castellanos Usigli was asked to help bring younger LGBTQ people into a Brooklyn clinic for sexual health services, he thought it would be a piece of cake. But after his first attempts failed, Antón turned to the one place where young people talk about sex every day: dating and hookup apps.

In this episode of "Better Off," DrPH student Antón Castellanos Usigli talks about creating positive conversations about sexual health, and the parallels between sex education and the public health messaging during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Guest: Antón Castellanos Usigli, DrPH student, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

For a full transcript of this episode, visit our website. Subscribe to get new episodes of Better Off in your podcast feed every other Wednesday.

Read more about Antón Castellanos Usigli's work, as well as the latest news from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health at hsph.harvard.edu/news. 

Music in this episode:

Ketsa – Sabre

Podington Bear – Am-Trans

Blue Dot Sessions – Sylvestor

Ketsa – Onwards Upwards 

We’re better off when kids are resilient

Are kids going to be okay when the pandemic is over? That’s the question on many parents’ minds as remote learning continues, and friends and family remain six feet apart. Better Off talks with psychologist and researcher Archana Basu about kids’ mental health and the COVID-19 crisis.

Guest: Archana Basu, Research Scientist, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

For a full transcript of this episode, visit our website. Subscribe to get new episodes of Better Off in your podcast feed every other Wednesday.

Read more about Archana Basu’s work on mental health as well as the latest news from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health at hsph.harvard.edu/news. 

Music in this episode:

Ketsa – Sabre

Blue Dot Sessions – Taoudella

Blue Dot Sessions - Topslides

Ketsa – Onwards Upwards 

Better Off talks with Harvard Chan School's Howard Koh about lessons learned from the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic, also known as swine flu, and how the incoming administration can use those lessons to respond to COVID-19.

Guest: Howard Koh, Harvey V. Fineberg Professor of the Practice of Public Health Leadership, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

For a full transcript of this episode, visit our website. Subscribe to get new episodes of Better Off in your podcast feed every other Wednesday.

What do you think of the incoming Biden administration's plan to respond to COVID-19? Share your thoughts with us on Twitter and Instagram. 

Read more about Howard Koh's work on health policy, along with all the latest news from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health at hsph.harvard.edu/news. 

Music in this episode:

Ketsa – Sabre

Blue Dot Sessions – St. Augustine Red

Blue Dot Sessions – Pxl Eventuat

Ketsa – Onwards Upwards

Until the COVID-19 pandemic, most of us didn't think about indoor air very much, if at all. But healthy buildings expert Joseph Allen has been studying indoor air for years. He says that since we spend 90% of lives inside, we need to do more to make our offices, homes, and schools places where we can breathe easy.

Guest: Joseph Allen, Associate Professor of Exposure Assessment Science, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

For a full transcript of this episode, visit our website. Subscribe to get new episodes of Better Off in your podcast feed every other Wednesday.

Has your office, school, or apartment building made changes since the pandemic? How have those changes affected your health? Share your thoughts with us on Twitter and Instagram. 

Read more about Joseph Allen’s research along with all the latest news from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health at hsph.harvard.edu/news. 

To read reports from Joseph Allen and his colleagues, visit ForHealth.org.

Music in this episode:

Ketsa – Sabre

Blue Dot Sessions – Milkwood

Blue Dot Sessions – Calisson

Ketsa – Onwards Upwards

How can we make our families, communities, and our world a little bit better during the COVID-19 crisis, and beyond?  That's the question we're asking on Better Off, a new podcast from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. In each episode of Better Off, host Anna Fisher-Pinkert will introduce you to the people who are hunting down solutions to current public health challenges, and innovating to solve public health problems that we haven’t even imagined yet.

Subscribe to Better Off wherever you get your podcasts. First episode coming soon!

Visit our website for a transcript of this trailer.