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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.

FXB at a glance

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Just published: A book by Margareta Matache, PhD, Director of FXB’s Roma Program for Health and Human Rights
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.
Now available
Image of book cover of The Permanence of Anti-Roma Racism: (Un)uttered Sentences

War and the public’s health

In person on December 10, 2025

1:00pm – 2:00pm EST at the Jonathan M. Mann Conference Room
Open to the public
Register here
Commemorating World Human Rights Day. Barry Levy, Yara Asi, Mary Bassett
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.

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.
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

Evaluating the impact of a longitudinal, integrated climate change, health, and environment curriculum in undergraduate medical training at Harvard Medical School

PLOS Climate
December 1, Gaurab Basu (Co-Author)

Read here

Translational social medicine for global health: introducing Cases in Global Social Medicine

The Lancet
November 15, Margareta Matache (Co-Author)

Read here

Responding to rising heat in workplaces and homes of low income workers

BMJ
November 4, Tess Wiskel, Jennifer Leaning, Satchit Balsari (Co-Authors)

Read here

Refugee Health Under Protracted Structural Oppression: The Palestinian Story

Health Education & Behavior
October 7, Yara M. Asi (Co-Author)

Read here

Select research and FXB news

The Endurance of Anti-Roma Racism (Margareta Matache authored, Foreign Policy in Focus, December 8, 2025)

Resilience is no substitute for justice (Jehane Sedky authored, Cognoscenti, November 21, 2025)

Challenging The Administration’s Weaponized And Lethal “Gold Standard Science” (Nancy Krieger authored, Health Affairs Forefront, November 18, 2025)

Women Toiling in India’s Insufferable Heat Face Mounting Toll on Health (Satchit Balsari quoted, The New York Times, November 16, 2025)

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

Health and Human Rights Journal logo

Health and Human Rights Journal

The FXB Center’s flagship journal, Health and Human Rights, provides an inclusive forum for action-oriented dialogue among human rights practitioners and scholars. The journal advances human rights knowledge and scholarship in the health field by linking an expanded community of readers and contributors. Being an open access journal, the full text of all articles in Health and Human Rights is freely available to anyone with internet access. Read the journal here.
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Photo of child holding balloons by a wall with graffiti of a child holding balloons.