An OsloMet Centre of Research Excellence studying the societal aspects of pandemics
What can we learn from the history of pandemics and the Covid-19 situation? Three short panel talks from 3 PANSOC researchers will be given followed by a panel conversation. Organizer is OsloMet University library. You can read more about the event here: Mental health and pandemics – OsloMet
Contact jessicad@oslomet.no if you need a link for the webinar on September 30.
Howard Phillips, University of Cape Town will present “The Silence of the Survivors: Why Did Survivors of the ‘Spanish’ Flu in South Africa Not Talk about the Epidemic?”
To dissect the label ‘forgotten’ which is as inaccurately applied across the board to the great influenza pandemic of 1918-1919 in South Africa as the label ‘Spanish’, this paper will draw a clear distinction between two categories of survivor, viz. institutions and individuals. In the case of institutions like the state, the military, the professions and faith-based communities, their silence stemmed mainly from a deliberate wish not to memorialise what was for them a comprehensive rout as they failed, by and large, to meet the needs of those dependent on them for protection or succour. On the other hand, the long silence of individuals about their experiences in the pandemic was, in the main, not the result of active suppression of memories but more a consequence of a reluctance to actively revive distressing memories of a doleful and frightening period of their lives. That they had not deliberately buried such memories in amnesia is made clear by the readiness with which, sixty years later—by when the pain of such memories had eased—over 170 of them willingly shared their graphic recollections of the pandemic in interviews with the author. Drawing on these almost unique recollections, this paper seeks to construct why, when and how their silence turned into speaking, thereby adding important dimensions to one-dimensional concepts of both silence and survivors.
Have you missed any of our recent webinars? Have you tried to watch the videos only to get error messages? You’re in luck! The recordings of past webinars have been moved over to Google Drive. You can find the new links here.
March 18: Siddharth Chandra, Michigan State University, USA: “Demographic impacts of the 1918 influenza pandemic.”
Part 1 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zGeicnUvdoal34NnqXzmEW3iVqc2986S/view?usp=sharing
Part 2 : https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gjEg9_RmzkII9CrYOlgnydZDY1JUSrPw/view?usp=sharing
March 25: Lone Simonsen, Roskilde University, Denmark: “The First Year of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IYI5u69u_UcUQKTqDfXU4g3vd5MwxfYr/view?usp=sharing
April 15: Rick J. Mourits, International Institute for Social History, Amsterdam, the Netherlands: “Occupational characteristics and spatial inequalities in mortality during 1918-9 influenza pandemic in the Netherlands.”
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kaS6-ZPXIUD3gE6tVqPyzv-9jt34e-pX/view?usp=sharing
April 22: Lisa Sattenspiel, University of Missouri, USA: “Comparing COVID-19 and the 1918 flu in rural vs. urban counties of Missouri.”
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nGAq4NiDNLSZ29k6SwP1QOSRk1mU6nX9/view?usp=sharing
April 29: Taylor Paskoff University of Missouri, USA: “Determinants of post-1918 influenza pandemic tuberculosis mortality in Newfoundland.”
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ITGdw3NVFmFvlczoe3dV07cBk_oab3zW/view?usp=sharing
May 7: Sushma Dahal & Gerardo Chowell-Puente, Georgia State University, USA: “Comparative analysis of excess mortality patterns during pandemics in Arizona and Mexico.”
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PJMxgZsjcoIZtDqGPVd8AQPrgp5nnM0h/view?usp=sharing
May 20: Jessica Dimka, Oslo Metropolitan University: “Disability, Institutionalization, and the 1918 Flu Pandemic: From Historical Records to Simulation Models.”
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yw2hcIrlOnntC03VwvKbCVu7TouQX7zj/view?usp=sharing
August 19: Elizabeth Wrigley-Field (University of Minnesota) & Martin Eiermann (University of Berkeley): “Racial Disparities in Mortality During the 1918 Influenza Pandemic in United States Cities.”
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QdMvRDzGcc_v9ltZNptunYdY2BNhTIx3/view?usp=sharing
September 9: Ida Milne, Carlow College: “Forgetting and Remembering the Great Flu: Collecting and Shaping Narratives.”
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AZxdaQ_rNktQ6bNetm8fBBghfBrBIf1F/view?usp=sharing
September 16: Mathias Mølbak Ingholt, Roskilde University, Denmark: “Occupational Characteristics and Spatial Differences During an Intermittent Fever Epidemic in Early 19th Century Denmark.”
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mgG0ENPAPqCpTcbkhR5XJlffGJx7__s7/view?usp=sharing
Join us on September 23 for the next webinar: Women and the Plague: Spanish Influenza in Melbourne Australia in 1919
Pandemics have always been more than just a medical problem, for they also highlight societal inequalities. Socioeconomic status and ethnic backgrounds have a profound effect on who gets sick, who dies, and who survives – often with long-term health consequences. The impact of the 1918-20 influenza pandemic globally is often told in statistical terms, with an emphasis placed on the high levels of mortality among young males; a tragedy heightened by the deaths of so many combatants during World War One. But what effect did the pandemic have on women, especially those who survived? How did women in the poorer working class suburbs eke out a living and, for the more fortunate, manage to survive? This paper will consider the effects of Spanish influenza in Melbourne. It is the result of burrowing down multiple rabbit holes to catch a glimpse of the effects the event had on women, in particular those in the working class suburbs of Melbourne.
Mary Sheehan is a doctoral candidate at the University Melbourne. Her thesis focuses on the social history of the Spanish influenza pandemic and its effects on Melbourne society in 1919. Mary has a background in nursing, and has worked in major general hospitals in Melbourne, the United States, and as a district nurse. After completing her undergraduate and Master of Arts degrees at Monash University in Melbourne, she was employed by the Victorian government in the public sector, and after that undertook multiple projects while a partner in Living Histories, including heritage studies, oral history projects and commissioned histories. In 2018 Mary returned to university to pursue a long-held interest in the social history of Spanish influenza at Melbourne University.
This study by Mari Holm Ingelsrud https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10301763.2021.1979449 investigates how work-related consequences of COVID-19 in Norway during the first wave varied between workers in different employment arrangements. The generalised linear model (GLM) regressions estimate the relative risk of being directed to work from home, temporarily laid off, having reduced working time and income loss in a representative sample of 3002 workers. The models compare temporarily employed and self-employed workers with permanently employed workers and workers in voluntary and involuntary part-time positions with full-time workers. Results indicate that the self-employed had a higher likelihood of experiencing reduced working time and income loss. Temporary employment did not entail a higher likelihood of any measured outcomes. Part-time workers had a higher chance of income loss and a lower chance of being directed to work from home than full-time workers. Results also indicate that employees in part-time positions had a higher likelihood of having reduced working hours. The findings are discussed with perspectives on flexibility, risk and how standard jobs form regulation and welfare policy. Despite the government’s efforts to increase the safety nets for new groups of workers, our results indicate that the coverage was not wide enough. Thus, illustrating the individual economic risk inherent in non-standard employment relationships.
Last year our Centre leader was interviewed on National German Radio on the handling of COVID-19 in in Norway relative to the Nordic countries. This year, he has done a follow-up interview for the program post Deutchlandfunk Kultur. You can listen to it here: Corona in Norwegen – Nordischer Hotspot statt Musterland (deutschlandfunkkultur.de)
If you missed yesterday’s webinar with Ida Milne, you can watch it here.
Next week, Mathias Mølbak Ingholt, a PhD student at PandemiX Center, Department of Science and Environment, Roskilde University, Denmark will present in our webinar series:
Occupational characteristics and spatial differences during an intermittent fever epidemic in early 19th century Denmark.
In the 1780’s, the high-mortality regime with frequent mortality shocks in the form of epidemics, famines and wars ended in Denmark. The 19th century is characterized as a century of declining infant- and child mortality, improving life expectancy and population growth. One event however contradicts this overall pattern: a mortality crisis in eastern Denmark that began in 1826 and ended in an explosive epidemic in the late summer and fall of 1831. In some villages, over 10% of the population died, and case fatality rates were as high as 60% some places. The epidemic began at the same time across larger geographical areas, and there is no traceable diffusion. In its time, it was labelled an “intermittent fever” epidemic – a diagnosis later associated with malaria. The theory of malaria has however been rebuked, and it has instead been suggested that it was a mass-infection of mold (Manniche, 1997). Despite being a demographic anomaly reminiscent of the high-mortality regime, the epidemic remains understudied by demographers. In this article, I study the spatial differences in mortality during the epidemic and the occupational characteristics of its victims.
Background: The objective of this study was to document whether and to what extent there is an association between socioeconomic status (SES) and disease outcomes in the last five influenza pandemics.
Methods/principle findings: The review included studies published in English, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish. Records were identified through systematic literature searches in six databases. We summarized results narratively and through meta-analytic strategies. Only studies for the 1918 and 2009 pandemics were identified. Of 14 studies on the 2009 pandemic including data on both medical and social risk factors, after controlling for medical risk factors 8 demonstrated independent impact of SES. In the random effect analysis of 46 estimates from 35 studies we found a pooled mean odds ratio of 1.4 (95% CI: 1.2–1.7, p < 0.001), comparing the lowest to the highest SES, but with substantial effect heterogeneity across studies,–reflecting differences in outcome measures and definitions of case and control samples. Analyses by pandemic period (1918 or 2009) and by level of SES measure (individual or ecological) indicated no differences along these dimensions. Studies using healthy controls tended to document that low SES was associated with worse influenza outcome, and studies using infected controls find low SES associated with more severe outcomes. A few studies compared severe outcomes (ICU or death) to hospital admissions but these did not find significant SES associations in any direction. Studies with more unusual comparisons (e.g., pandemic vs seasonal influenza, seasonal influenza vs other patient groups) reported no or negative non-significant associations.
Conclusions/significance: We found that SES was significantly associated with pandemic influenza outcomes with people of lower SES having the highest disease burden in both 1918 and 2009. To prepare for future pandemics, we must consider social vulnerability. The protocol for this study has been registered in PROSPERO (ref. no 87922) and has been published Mamelund et al. (2019).
This weekend PANSOC kicked off the academic year of 2021-22 by having a garden party with Brats, Beer & Music. We celebrated ourselves and our achievements over the past 9 months since our inauguration. Our preliminary stats shows that we have published 9 journal articles, 2 paper are accepted, 1 article is a R&R, 3 papers are submitted and we have tons of new manuscripts. We have also contributed to the report of the Norwegian Corona-Comission; held 15 national & international key-notes, 2 invites guest lectures, and 4 regular conference presentations; been interviewed on TV, radio and newspapers 21 times and participated in 4 pod-casts; held 12 PANSOC webinars and one of our masters students got the student of the year price at OsloMet.
Thanks to event maker Roar Smelhus who suggesting a concert with Ole Kirkeng. He hold a fantastic mini-concert in beautiful Norwegian fall weather.
