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. 

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Music in this episode:

Ketsa – Sabre

Ketsa – Onwards Upwards