Foundation Awards University Money for Health Promotion

Harvard researchers will be looking to draw up new health promotion policies under a recent grant from a major foundation.

The W.K. Kellogg Foundation this month awarded Harvard $216,216 to formulate health promotion strategies for two different sets of people--workers and smokers.

Both projects will try to develop specific policy recommendations for public and private institutions, officials said last week.

One project--overseen by Charles A. Czeisler, assistant professor of Medicine--focuses on workers' biological rhythms and the consequences of disrupted work schedules.

The other--conducted under the lead of Thomas C. Schelling, Littauer Professor of Political Economy--will reexamine policies that encourage people to stop or not to start smoking

Workers

The worker project will focus on three work site areas, according to researchers involved, the long-term consequences of disrupted work schedules; reducing the risk of heart attacks; and stopping smoking in the workplace.

Carol M. Cerf, an official with Harvard's division of Health Policy Research and Education--which is running the programs--said that the project has already begun by examining the shifts in a small Utah factory.

Initial results show that if worker shifts are changed, workers feel healthier if they are moved forward with body rhythms--that is from the morning to the evening--rather than backwards, Cerf said.

Not only that, she added, but the factory productivity was found to increase. "On a job they used to fall asleep on, the productivity went up to the extent that the factory ran out of work," Cerf said

Smoking

The smoking project will examine a wide varity of techniques, programs, and policies that have been used to encourage people to cease smoking or not to start.

For instance, Cerf said, the researchers will examine the effect of the removal of cigarette advertisements from television in the 1970s They will also try to examine smoking patterns among different income groups, she said

The Health Policy Division tries to bring an interdisciplinary approach to health problems by combining the faculties of the Kennedy School of Government, the Medical School, and the School of Public Health.

"These projects are especially exciting because it is a joint program of three schools," said Julius B Richmond, director of the Division. "Problems such as these must be considered not only from the medical point of view, but also politically, economically and financially."

Schelling could not be reached for comment.