Centre for Research on Pandemics & Society (PANSOC)
An OsloMet Centre of Research Excellence studying the societal aspects of pandemics
Former Master’s student Christina Stylegar Torjussen and PANSOC leader Svenn-Erik Mamelund have just published a new editorial, Extreme Overcrowding and Extreme Lethality during the 1918 Influenza Pandemic, in the American Journal of Public Health.
You can hear more about Christina’s thesis in this podcast (in Norwegian).
Pandemics are a pressing global threat to human life and security, and they have especially serious impacts on Indigenous people throughout the world.
The Centre for Advanced Study (CAS) funded project Social Science Meets Biology: Indigenous People and Severe Influenza Outcomes, to be held from August 2022 to June 2023, will bring together interdisciplinary researchers from PANSOC and other international institutions to foster conversations that integrate medical, epidemiological and social perspectives in order to increase understanding of Indigenous experiences when faced with pandemic diseases and better appreciate the diversity of pandemic consequences faced by Indigenous vs. non-Indigenous peoples.
The project will also seek to identify policies to improve prevention and control of pandemics with a particular focus on lessoning their impacts of Indigenous peoples and recommending future research priorities in this area.
As part of this project, a conference will be held in Oslo 15-16 May 2023. Read the call for papers here: Indigenous Peoples & Pandemics conference – CAS
Over the 2022-23 academic year, head of PANSOC, Svenn-Erik Mamelund, will lead a group at the Centre for Advanced Study at the Norwegian Academy for Science and Letters in Oslo.
Photo: On the left starting in front, Svenn-Erik Mamelund, Jessica Dimka, Heather Battles and Lisa Sattenspiel. On the right starting in front, Eleniai Damas, Gerardo Chowel and Benjamin Schneider.
In the Social Science Meets Biology: Indigenous People and Severe Influenza Outcomes – CAS project, 15 international researchers with a background in epidemiology, genetics, social sciences and history will study why Indigenous peoples are vulnerable to serious disease during pandemics. PANSOC is the first OsloMet group awarded a research stay at CAS. The selection of CAS research groups follows an extensive review process by international experts, which shows the outstanding international quality of PANSOC’s research.
We have just published our second paper which is part of our 2022-23 academic year project at the Centre for Advanced Study Social Science Meets Biology: Indigenous People and Severe Influenza Outcomes – CAS. You can read the whole paper here: Investigating COVID-19 transmission and mortality differences between indigenous and non-indigenous populations in Mexico – International Journal of Infectious Diseases (ijidonline.com)
Highlights
Indigenous populations have been disproportionately affected during pandemics. We investigated COVID-19 mortality estimates among indigenous and non-indigenous populations at national and sub-national levels in Mexico.
We obtained data from the Ministry of Health, Mexico, on 2,173,036 laboratory-confirmed RT-PCR positive COVID-19 cases and 238,803 deaths. We estimated mortality per 1000 person-weeks, mortality rate ratio (RR) among indigenous vs. non-indigenous groups, and hazard ratio (HR) for COVID-19 deaths across four waves of the pandemic, from February 2020 to March 2022. We also assessed differences in the reproduction number (Rt).
The mortality rate among indigenous populations of Mexico was 68% higher than that of non-indigenous groups. Out of 32 federal entities, 23 exhibited higher mortality rates among indigenous groups (P < 0.05 in 13 entities). The fourth wave showed the highest RR (2.40). The crude HR was 1.67 (95% CI: 1.62, 1.72), which decreased to 1.08 (95% CI: 1.04, 1.11) after controlling for other covariates. During the intense fourth wave, the Rt among the two groups was comparable.
Indigenous status is a significant risk factor for COVID-19 mortality in Mexico. Our findings may reflect disparities in non-pharmaceutical (e.g., handwashing and using facemasks), and COVID-19 vaccination interventions among indigenous and non-indigenous populations in Mexico.
Alexandra (Sasha) Blinkova is a researcher at risk (due to the Russian invasion into Ukraine) in the interdisciplinary field of religious studies. She has a PhD in philosophy of religion and religious studies from St. Petersburg State University (Russia) having successfully defended the dissertation on the topic of religious education in Russian schools and comparison of Russian model with the ones represented in the European Union countries.
Her research interests stem from the desire to understand how religion is manifested in contemporary world. In particular, it includes contextualization of religious tradition; analysis of educational policies in the field of religion with a focus on ideology and values; religious attitudes towards life threatening issues like organ transplants; correlations between religiosity and wellbeing, religiosity and aggression.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, her research focus has been drawn to the rapid spread of religious information in social media showing the power of religion regarding people’s responses to the pandemic as well as reshaping of religion itself by the pandemic. As a member of the OsloMet Centre for Research on Pandemics & Society (PANSOC), she has been invited to resubmit a MSCA proposal for Postdoctoral Fellowship and carry out a pilot project on religion and pandemics in social media.
Yo can find Sasha’s e-mail and social media profiles here: Our team – Centre for Research on Pandemics & Society (PANSOC) (oslomet.no)
