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Child drawing of children. The FXB Center is founded on the inextricable link between health and human rights and is committed to filling critical gaps in mainstream academic scholarship to champion the rights and dignity of every individual, with special attention to children—among the most vulnerable.

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Treating violence against children as a disease

In person on October 28, 2025
Featuring a conversation between Nandana Sen and Dr. Susan Bissell.
Register here
Treating violence against children as a disease. A panel of experts and activists will join Dr. Susan Bissell for several wide-ranging discussions following the publication of the book she co-edited: Protecting the World’s Children: Public Health, Human Rights, Capabilities
Recently published!
A book that explores the protection of children in an increasingly tumultuous world.
Available here
Image of book cover of Protecting the World's Children: public health, human rights, capabilities.

Innovations in immigrant mental health

Upcoming event: In person on October 30, 2025
Harvard ID required. A light lunch will be served.
Register here
Green background with graphics of brains turning into circuits.

Handbook on Migration and Human Rights

Just published!
This Research Handbook examines the complex issues faced by migrants and refugees in securing their human rights. By challenging and reformulating the crisis narrative often perpetuated by states and international organizations, it provides a gendered, cutting-edge, in-depth investigation of key themes central to the human rights implications of migration. FXB Director of Research, Jacqueline Bhabha, JD, MSc, and Director of the FXB Center Program on Distress Migration, Vasileia Digidiki, MSc, PhD, co-authored chapter seven titled “Solidarity towards distress migrants: how changing frontline communities depend on states to build a new public.” This work builds on their ongoing research into factors that are critical for sustaining a sense of solidarity towards migrants by the communities that receive them.
Available here
Book cover: Handbook on Migration and Human Rights. Edited by Ruth Rubio Marin, Dorothy Estrada-Tanck, Benedita Menezes Queiroz, Fulvia Staiano. Elgar Handbooks on Migration.

G. Barrie Landry Child Protection Professional Training program

Team applications accepted until December 1, 2025
Program dates: June 1-5, 2026
Location: Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Video: The founding vision of the G. Barrie Landry Professional Training program
More information
Group photo of FXB's 2025 Landry cohort.

Slavery in Moldova and Wallachia: Silences, Memory, and Resistance

MEMOROBIA Conference: November 24-25, 2025
This event will mark the conclusion of the research project MEMOROBIA: Memorialization of Romani Enslavement in the Territories of Contemporary Romania. Registration is now open!
More information
Flier with graphic of iron punishment collar with lock and logos of Norwegian School of Theology, Religion, and Society; FXB Center for Health & Human Rights; Amare Rromentza; The Research Council of Norway; HL-Senteret: The Norwegian Center for Holocaust and Minority Studies.
Coming soon!
This book situates anti-Roma racism within national and intra-continental histories and global scholarship, exploring its specific and universal underpinnings and manifestations and its interconnectedness with other systems of oppression.
Available in December 2025
Image of book cover of The Permanence of Anti-Roma Racism: (Un)uttered Sentences
FXB Report
Read the full report here
Composite image of undulating Roma flag over map graphic of Greater Toronto-Hamilton Area. Red Roma wheel at the center. Graphics by Mary Delaware, Harvard Public Health.

Select peer-reviewed publications

Impact of Daily Maximum Temperature on Emergency Department Arrivals and Acuity Levels

Western Journal of Emergency Medicine: Integrating Emergency Care with Population Health
September 25, Catharina Giudice, Caleb Dresser (Co-Authors)

Read here

The Formation and Transformation of Medical Apartheid in Palestine: A Historical Examination

International Journal of Social Determinants of Health and Health Services
September 25, Osama Tanous, Yara M. Asi, Bram Wispelwey, David Mills, Weeam Hammoudeh, Rania Muhareb (Co-Authors)

Read here

Structural and Scientific Racism, Science, and Health — Evidence versus Ideology

The New England Journal of Medicine
September 20, Nancy Krieger and Mary T. Bassett (Co-Authors)

Read here

Minimum Standards for Medical Care of Youth Incarcerated Across the United States

Pediatrics
July 21, Tess Kelly (Co-Author)

Read here

Select research and FXB news

Conceptualizing the Child’s Right to Oral Health: A Rights-Based Approach to Dental Caries (Health and Human Rights journal, October 10, 2025)

New cohort of Scholarly Working Groups to tackle pressing global health challenges (Satchit Balsari mentioned, The Harvard Gazette, September 25, 2025)

“Solidarity towards distress migrants: how changing frontline communities
depend on states to build a new public.” Ruth Rubio Marín, Dorothy Estrada-Tanck, Benedita Menezes Queiroz, Fulvia Staiano (Eds.). Handbook on Migration and Human Rights, Edward Elgar Publishing, 2025, Jacqueline Bhabha, Vasileia Digidiki (Chapter Co-Authors)

Canadian Roma: A People Uncounted (FXB Roma Program report profiled, Travellers Times, September 5, 2025)

NIH director Bhattacharya’s views on health disparities contradict, experts say (Mary Bassett and Nancy Krieger quoted, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health News, August 7, 2025)