10 October Seminar: Democratization and Excess COVID-19 Mortality in the EU and the CIS
For the fourth Pandemics & Society Seminar of our Fall 2024 series we are pleased to welcome Umit Tleshova (Charles University). The seminar will be held on Thursday, 10 October at the normal time (1600 CEST). More information about our speaker and the presentation is below. You can sign up for email notifications about the seminar series, including the Zoom details, here.
Abstract
In the midst of the challenges brought about by COVID-19, it is crucial to evaluate excess mortality to effectively respond to public health needs. This research explores how mortality data has been censored in 18 countries that were previously under communist regimes until the 1990s, with a specific focus on the impact of democratization. The Democracy Index (DI) was used as a parameter, building upon previous studies that have linked democratic governance with mortality outcomes. By computing and analyzing excess mortality from January 2020 to the end of 2021, compared to the previous five years, we utilized common databases such as the World Health Organization (WHO), United Nations World Population Prospects (UN WPP), and the World Mortality Dataset (WMD). We observed an interplay between DI and the undercount ratio of COVID-19 deaths within several independent states; however, our findings did not reveal any correlation between excess mortality and DI levels.
About the Speaker
Umit Tleshova is a PhD Student at the Department of Demography and Geodemography in the Faculty of Science, Charles University, Prague, Czechia. She conducted research on COVID-19 excess mortality data sources and their connection to political regimes among 17 countries in cooperation with Prof. Doc. RNDr. Dagmar Dzúrová and Dr. Klára Hulíková Tesárková. She obtained a Master’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Bolton, dedicating her field research to the socio-economic challenges faced by women in Nairobi, Kenya. She focuses on global population challenges and is currently dedicating her doctoral research to studying Covid-19 mortality data in countries with a communist history in the EU and CIS.
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New paper: Drivers and barriers of seasonal vaccination uptake
Background:
This study aimed to explore the reasons adults in the general population, influenza risk groups (RGs) and health care workers (HCWs) in Norway give for their vaccination choices and whether these reasons vary between groups or over time in order to further improve influenza vaccination coverage.
Methods:
Respondents of a nationally representative telephone survey conducted by Statistics Norway were asked “What was the most important reason why you did/did not get vaccinated?”. The question on influenza non-vaccination was included in 2016 and in 2020 to 2023 and the question on influenza vaccination in 2021 to 2023.
Results:
The study included 9 705 individuals aged 18–79 years. Influenza vaccination coverage in the RGs increased from 20.6% in 2016 to 63.1% in 2022, before a reduction to 58.3% in 2023. Common reasons for non-vaccination were similar in all groups. The most cited reasons were “no need” for the vaccine and “no specific reason”, followed by “not recommended/offered the vaccine”, “worry about side effects” and “vaccine refusal”. The most frequent reasons for vaccination among the general population and RGs were protection against influenza and belonging to a RG, while the most frequent responses among HCWs were being offered the vaccine at work/work in health care, followed by a desire for protection against influenza. Receiving a vaccine recommendation from a health professional was mentioned in all groups. We also observed that the proportion reporting “no need” for the vaccine decreased over time, especially among HCWs, and that the proportions reporting vaccine refusal and worry about side effects as reasons for non-vaccination were temporarily reduced during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Conclusions:
The general population and RGs cite protection against influenza as their primary incentive for vaccination, while HCWs mainly refer to their professional role or workplace vaccination. For non-vaccination we see a similar pattern in all groups, with “no need” and “no specific reason” as the main reasons. Of note, worry about side effects and vaccine refusal is as frequent among HCWs as in other groups. Continued efforts to maintain and increase vaccine confidence are needed.
3 October Seminar: Wages and inequality in the Middle Ages
For the third Pandemics & Society Seminar of our Fall 2024 series we are pleased to welcome Spike Gibbs (Universität Mannheim). The seminar will be held on Thursday, 3 October at the normal time (1600 CEST). More information about our speaker and the presentation is below. You can sign up for email notifications about the seminar series, including the Zoom details, here.
Abstract
The in-kind wages paid to pre-industrial workers have recently received new attention by economic historians interested in understanding long-term living standards. However, in-kind wages are difficult to quantify leading historians to either ignore them entirely or use proxies such as consumer price index baskets of goods to capture their value. In this paper, we take a different approach by using a new dataset to directly measure the quantity, composition, and value of grain wages paid to late medieval agricultural workers across the period 1270 to 1440. This allows us to precisely measure remuneration, and the value of its cash and in-kind components, at the level of the individual worker. We use this information to evaluate the mechanisms which led to changes in labour remuneration in the period following the Black Death and differences in the effects between workers. Our results clearly demonstrate that the wages of the average adult male worker rose in the wake of the Plague, but only after a thirty-year hiatus, showing that changes in labour relations, rather than worker productivity in and of itself, drove the ‘golden age of labour’. However, preliminary investigations of variation between workers suggest a more complex story: while in the aggregate wages appear to have been similar across different manors held by the same estate, inequality in the wages paid between different types of worker were persistent, suggesting a rigidity in occupational hierarchies that was not overturned by the Plague.
The paper is a collaboration with Jordan Claridge (LSE) and Vincent Delabastita (Radboud)
About the Speaker
Spike Gibbs is Junior Professor for the Economic History of the Middle Ages at the University of Mannheim. His research addresses topics such as local officeholding, agricultural wages, the economics of lordship, and the social networks of village communities.
Mamelund top 2% in Stanford University’s 2024 ranking
Centre leader Mamelund is among Top 2% Scientists in his field in Stanford University’s 2024 recently published ranking. He is ranked 1145 of 69595 in Public Health. Read more about the ranking and make your own searches here: https://lnkd.in/dfZvY9GH
19 September Seminar: How Germs Shaped History
For the second Pandemics & Society Seminar of our Fall 2024 series we are pleased to welcome Jonathan Kennedy (Queen Mary, University of London). The seminar will be held on Thursday, 19 September at the normal time (1600 CEST). More information about our speaker and the presentation is below. You can sign up for email notifications about the seminar series, including the Zoom details, here.
Abstract
Disciplines such as history are anthropocentric, viewing the natural world as a stage on which humans, whether “Great Men” or struggling classes, play out their roles. This talk brings together research from a range of disciplines – microbiology, anthropology, and sociology; genomics, classics, and economics – to explore the role that pathogens have played in the past. We will take a brisk ride through the recent history of our species, to see how infectious diseases played critical roles in many of the great social, political and economic transformations, from the emergence of Christianity and Islam as world religions, to the transition from feudalism to capitalism.
About the Speaker
Jonathan Kennedy is a Reader in Politics and Global Health at Queen Mary University of London. He has a PhD in sociology from the University of Cambridge. His first book, Pathogenesis: How Germs Made History, was a Sunday Times Science Book of the Year and a national bestseller in the USA. It has been translated into 12 languages, including Norwegian.
5 September Seminar: What can we learn from historical pandemics?
For the first Pandemics & Society Seminar of our Fall 2024 series, we are pleased to welcome Áine Doran (Ulster University). The seminar will be held on Thursday, 5 September at the normal time (1600 CEST). More information about our speaker and the presentation is below. You can sign up for email notifications about the seminar series, including the Zoom details, here.
The paper has been published in Social Science & Medicine and is available here.
Abstract
What are the insights from historical pandemics for policymaking today? We carry out a systematic review of the literature on the impact of pandemics that occurred since the Industrial Revolution and prior to Covid-19. Our literature searches were conducted between June 2020 and September 2023, with the final review encompassing 169 research papers selected for their relevance to understanding either the demographic or economic impact of pandemics. We include literature from across disciplines to maximise our knowledge base, finding many relevant articles in journals which would not normally be on the radar of social scientists. Our review identifies two gaps in the literature: (1) the need to study pandemics and their effects more collectively rather than looking at them in isolation; and (2) the need for more study of pandemics besides 1918 Spanish Influenza, especially milder pandemic episodes. These gaps are a consequence of academics working in silos, failing to draw on the skills and knowledge offered by other disciplines. Synthesising existing knowledge on pandemics in one place provides a basis upon which to identify the lessons in preparing for future catastrophic disease events.
About the Speaker
Áine Doran (PhD, QUB) is a Lecturer in Economics at Ulster University. Her research focuses on Economic History, primarily in the areas of demography, living standards and development. Her PhD is entitled ‘Pandemics, Poverty and Population: Essays in Economic History’. One part of the thesis studies 19th century Ireland with the aim of better understanding the context and causes of the Irish Famine. The second area of study is understanding pandemics which have occurred in the last 100 years and both the economic and demographic impact they had. Along with academic conferences, Áine has spoken about her work at both public events and government departments.