In 1938, Harvard researchers began a study that, unbeknownst to them, would become the longest study of adult life that has ever been conducted.
The Harvard Study of Adult Development—now in its 85th year—aimed to gain insights into human health by helping to understand what makes people happy and thrive in life as opposed to focusing on what makes them sick.
The First Generation
Beginning in 1938, the study followed the lives of two groups of men.
The first was a group of 268 sophomores at Harvard University—young men who lived through the great depression and finished college during World War II....
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