Category: Affiliated Projects

Centre leader Mamelund has been awarded a NordIAS Visiting Fellowship from the Centre for Advanced Study in Oslo (CAS) to visit Tampere Institute for Advanced Study for three weeks in April. This visit will enhance rare academic collaboration and dialogue across Norway and Finland in the fields of mathematical pandemiology (Mamelund, Chowell, Gaddy, Raitoharju) and economic and social history of war (Peltola, Saaritsa, Gaddy, Taskinen).

The aim of the “Scarred people” project is to model excess all-cause spatial mortality in Tampere due to scarring events like the like typhoid epidemics in 1916, the Finnish civil war in 1918, Spanish flu in 1918-20, and unemployment during the Great Depression of the 1920s, using Serfling models and GIS.

The context of a civil war and pandemic in 1918 is especially interesting as it makes us able to tease out interactions of disease, crowding in prison camps, executions, and undernourishment. At the peak, there were almost 10 000 POWs at the camp in Tampere, compared to a normal city population of 45 000. Past scholars of the Spanish flu have hypothesized about the impacts of malnutrition on mortality during the pandemic, but malnutrition in 1918 generally happened in contexts in which high-quality data is not available. Using our collective expertise in disease modelling and the context of the Finnish civil war to study the experience of the pandemic in the POW camp will lead to a better understanding of the pandemic globally.

Our Finish partners have 1) individual cause-specific mortality data (650-800 deaths/year) with the possibility to link deaths to population and red guard membership data, as well as occupation, address, age, gender, and time at the prison camp; 2) weekly statistics of morbidity with causes in the city (in Finland, the city doctors had to report every case to the city health board); and 3) individual hospitalization records for the 1918-21 period from both the city hospitals (City archive) and the hospital in the prison camp (National archive). These latter data have not been collected yet, but we will discuss how to photograph and transcribe this data during the visit.

Expected contributions to Tampere IAS include 1) a workshop to set up data and discuss emerging findings; 2) Guest lectures by Mamelund at Tampere IAS and the Universities of Tampere and Helsinki; 3) Half day academic presentations for larger audience at Tampere; 4) Active participations in academic and social activities at the Tampere IAS, and Tampere and Helsinki universities; 5) Mentoring of students, including a Master student (Antti Puska) who is studying the Spanish flu in Tampere, 1918-1921; 6) An evaluation of the visit and the outcome of the visit to CAS Oslo; 7) Draft of at least one scientific journal article; 8) Collaborations on proposals for new research funding.

Collaborators at Tampere IAS and Tampere University:
1. Ilari Taskinen (Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Tampere University & previously at Tampere IAS 2023-25)
2. Emma Raitoharju (University Lecturer, Faculty of Medicine & Health Technology, Tampere University)

Collaborators at University of Helsinki:
3. Jarmo Peltola (Senior Research Fellow, Economic and Social History, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Helsinki, Finland)
4. Sakari Saaritsa (Professor of Social History, Director, Master’s Programme in Society and Change, Economic and and Social History, Faculty of Social Sciences University of Helsinki, Finland)

Affiliated collaborators:
6. Gerardo Chowell (Georgia State University).
7 Hampton Gaddy (LSE).

Participants: Svenn-Erik Mamelund, Hampton Gaddy, Diego Ramiro Farinas, Jonas Wangsmo, Ole Georg Moseng, Vibeke Nyborg Narverud, Benjamin Schneider, Elienai Damas, Gerardo Chowel, Vera Østensen, Uddhav Khakurel (Photo: Helene Ramnæs)

On 4th of December, we held a small, policy-relevant workshop to present findings from our Short-Term residential fellowship at CAS (November-December 2025) and to celebrate the 5-year anniversary of the Centre for Research on Pandemics & Society (PANSOC).

Program for the workshop on Indigenous Peoples & Pandemics: Data Completeness & Vaccine Access Disparities, Turret room at https://cas-nor.no/, Drammensveien 78, 0271 Oslo.

12:00-12:45 Lunch at Home Hotel Gabelshus | Oslo | Strawberry, Gabels gate 16, 0272, Oslo – a 5 minutes walk from CAS.

13:00-13:10 Svenn-Erik Mamelund (OsloMet), Welcome remarks

13:10-13:30 Diego Ramiro Fariñas (CSIC, Madrid), 5-year anniversary of the Centre for Research on Pandemics & Society (PANSOC): Impact on science and policy

13:30-14:15 Damas/Chowell (Georgia State University), Differential timing of COVID-19 vaccine rollouts across Mexican municipalities. Discussant: Diego Ramiro Fariñas

14:15-14:45 Coffee Break

14:45-15:30 Hampton Gaddy (LSE), Completeness of mortality data at the time of the 1918-20 influenza pandemic in Alaska. Discussant: Diego Ramiro Fariñas

15:30-16:00 Future collaborations

16:00-17:30: Coffee Break, socializing etc., read e-mails, check social media.

17:30- Dinner will be served in the Turret room at https://cas-nor.no/

PANSOC is at Centre for Advanced Research at the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters on a Short-Term Fellowship in November and December 2025. You can read more here: “Coming Home”: Svenn-Erik Mamelund Returns to CAS for a Short-Term Fellowship | CAS

Two years after completing his CAS project on Indigenous vulnerability to pandemics, Svenn-Erik Mamelund and parts of the old team is back at the centre — picking up threads that remain vital to understanding both past and present health crises.

Why does it feel like coming home when returning to Centre for Advanced Study (CAS) at The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters? I am here interviewed by Julie Ellinor Frølich Dalseth and give my answer to this question and explain the new research we do as part of a Short-Term Fellowship at CAS in November and December 2025:

“Coming Home”: Svenn-Erik Mamelund Returns to CAS for a Short-Term Fellowship | CAS

In fierce competition with other research environments, we have just been offered a Short-Term residential fellowship at Centre for Advanced Study (CAS) at the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters for the two months of November and December 2025.

Together with three fellows (Gerardo Chowell, Georgia State University, Elienai Joaquin-Damas, Oslo Metropolitan University and Hampton Gaddy, London School of Economics), Centre leader Svenn-Erik Mamelund will use the CAS residency to finalize two publications stemming from our previous participation in the 2022–2023 CAS project Social Science Meets Biology.

The two new papers will analyze “Differential timing of COVID-19 vaccine rollouts across Mexican municipalities” and “Completeness of mortality data at the time of the 1918-20 influenza pandemic in Alaska“.

Our time at CAS will also be used to host a small, policy-relevant workshop to present these findings and celebrate the 5-year anniversary of the Centre for Research on Pandemics & Society (PANSOC).