Call for applications for Visiting Researcher Program to do research on Indigenous Peoples & Pandemics

masv on 14. June 2022

The 1918-20 influenza pandemic hit the native communities in Alaska hard. These children in an orphanage in Nushagak, Alaska, lost their parents. Summer of 1919. Source: Alaska Historical Library
The 1918-20 influenza pandemic hit the native communities in Alaska hard. These children in an orphanage in Nushagak, Alaska, lost their parents. Summer of 1919. Source: Alaska Historical Library

Pandemics are one of the most pressing global threats 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 – CAS, to be held from August 2022 to June 2023, will bring together interdisciplinary researchers to foster conversations that integrate medical, epidemiological and social perspectives. The primary aims are to increase understanding of the commonalities and varieties of Indigenous experiences when faced with pandemic diseases and better appreciate the diversity of pandemic consequences faced by Indigenous vs. non-indigenous peoples.

As part of this project, we welcome applications from advanced PhD students and post-PhD academics at all career stages for a short visit to Oslo during the 2022-2023 academic year. The venue is CAS at the The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters | Det Norske Videnskaps-Akademi (dnva.no) in Oslo.

Applicants with Indigenous background are especially welcomed, but non-Indigenous researchers are also encouraged to apply. Visiting researchers will be expected to give a talk on their research and will have the opportunity to discuss potential collaborations and proposals with CAS fellows.

We encourage applications from science-oriented researchers with interests in Indigenous people’s experiences with historical, current, and future pandemics. Examples of topics of interest are:

  • Disparities in disease outcomes or impacts of public health measures based on Indigenous status, taking socioeconomic and other types of inequalities into account.
  • Syndemic interactions among multiple infectious conditions or with non-communicable diseases, chronic health conditions, intergenerational trauma and colonization.
  • Relationships between infectious disease epidemics and other crises such as financial crisis, wars, extreme climate events and climate change.

The visiting researcher program will cover transportation costs to Oslo and hotel accommodations for 1-2 weeks.

Please send a CV and cover letter with a short description (1-2 pages) of your research interests and objectives for a visit to Oslo, as well as anticipated timing or availability for travel, to Professor and group leader Svenn-Erik Mamelund (masv@oslomet.no).

APPLICATION DEADLINE: 15 August, 2022

Fall 2022 Webinar Schedule

masv on 14. June 2022

Centre for Research on Pandemics & Society (PANSOC)

We are pleased to announce the fall webinar series. All talks will be held Thursdays at 1600 CET (Oslo time) unless otherwise noted. Please contact jessicad@oslomet.no if you need a link.

15 September: Kirsty Short, The University of Queensland, “Obesity and viral disease: lessons for pandemic preparedness.”

22 September: Nele Brusselaers, Antwerp University & Karolinska Institutet, “How science affected Covid-19 policy in Sweden.”

29 September: Sushma Dahal & Gerardo Chowell, Georgia State University, “COVID-19 mortality among Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations in Mexico.”

6 October: Alexi Gugushvili, University of Oslo, “The COVID-19 Pandemic and War: The Case of Ukraine.”

20 October, 1500 CET: Masato Shizume, Waseda University, The Great Influenza Pandemic in Japan: Policy Responses and Socioeconomic Consequences.”

27 October: Ben Schneider, Oslo Metropolitan University, TBA

3 November: Heather Battles, The University of Auckland, “A historical syndemic? Measles and scarlet fever in the Victorian goldfields.”

17 November: Esyllt Jones, University of Manitoba, TBA

1 December: Tobias A. Jopp and Mark Spoerer, University of Regensburg, “Tracing the temporal and spatial course of the Spanish flu in Germany.”

Call for applications for Visiting Researcher Program

masv on 23. May 2022

Centre for Research on Pandemics & Society (PANSOC)

PANSOC welcomes applications from advanced PhD students and post-PhD academics at all career stages for a short visit to Oslo during the 2022-2023 academic year.

Visiting researchers will be expected to give one public talk on their research and one internal talk (for example, a methods workshop or discussion of current or future work). Visitors will also have the opportunity to discuss potential collaborations and proposals with PANSOC-affiliated researchers.

We encourage applications from researchers in all fields of social sciences and humanities with interests in the social aspects of historical, current, and future pandemics. We are particularly interested in topics such as:

  • Disparities in disease outcomes or impacts of public health measures based on socioeconomic and other inequalities.
  • Syndemic interactions with non-communicable diseases and chronic health conditions.
  • Relationships between infectious disease epidemics and other crises such as wars or extreme climate events.

The visiting researcher program will cover transportation costs to Oslo and hotel accommodations for one week.

Please send a CV and cover letter with a short description (1-2 pages) of your research interests and objectives for a visit to Oslo, as well as anticipated timing or availability for travel, to Svenn-Erik Mamelund (masv@oslomet.no).

APPLICATION DEADLINE: 31 July, 2022

PANSOC-affiliated students submitted their theses

masv on 21. May 2022

Here they are: these PANSOC affiliated researchers all submitted their masters theses this week on pandemic topics. Congrats, we are so proud of you!

Kan være et bilde av 3 personer, folk som står og innendørs

Picture shows from left to right, Carla Hughes, Lara Steinmetz and Christina Torjussen, at a conference in Bergen fall of 2021.

Jessica Dimka invited to ERC interview

masv on 20. May 2022

PANSOC has received excellent news this Friday: co-leader Jessica Dimka has passed step 1 and has been invited to interview for an ERC Starting Grant. Her proposed project, EpiDynamics, focuses on interactions and feedback between seasonal infectious diseases and chronic health conditions in order to understand health, demographic, and ultimately evolutionary changes in human populations over time.

New paper out: Indigenous peoples & Pandemics

masv on 12. May 2022

Photo: Orphans after the “Spanish” flu pandemic in Nushagak, Alaska, summer of 1919. Source: Alaska Historical Library

In this new paper in Scandinavian Journal of Public health, titled Indigenous peoples and pandemics – Daniele E. Alves, Svenn-Erik Mamelund, Jessica Dimka, Lone Simonsen, Mathias Mølbak, Søren Ørskov, Lisa Sattenspiel, Lianne Tripp, Andrew Noymer, Gerardo Chowell-Puente, Sushma Dahal, Taylor P. Van Doren, Amanda Wissler, Courtney Heffernan, Kirsty Renfree Short, Heather Battles, Michael G. Baker, 2022 (sagepub.com), we have done a review of the literature on Indigenous vs. non-Indigenous disparities in mortality during the 1918 and 2009 influenza pandemics as well as the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

The paper concludes that there there were large disparities in mortality in 1918 and in 2009. However, there are simply not enough high quality data, which makes it difficult to investigate whether Indigenous peoples have a larger COVID-19 mortality risk than non-Indigenous persons.

This paper is the first of several collaborative papers that will come out of the 2022-2023 CAS-project titled Social Science Meets Biology: Indigenous People and Severe Influenza Outcomes – CAS and led by PANSOC leader Mamelund

Next Webinar 5 May

masv on 29. April 2022

On 5 May at 1600 CET, Vibeke Narverud Nyborg, University of South-Eastern Norway and PANSOC, will present Different approaches to Public Health Legislation as means in fighting the influenza pandemic 1918 to 1920.

In the decades prior to the outbreak of the influenza pandemic in 1918, Norway had a significant development and focus on public health, including national health legislation and organizing the administration of public health. These legislations were based on international development of medicine, understanding disease and infection, and preventive measures in addition to national uniqueness. Despite this, disagreement and different local solutions to the major health threat caused by the pandemic seem to characterize the use of national legislation as a driving force in fighting the influenza pandemic in Norway. In this presentation I focus on different approaches to explore and understand how national legislation was used, and within what framework local authorities based their decision in trying to fight the influenza pandemic between 1918 and 1920.

Vibeke Narverud Nyborg is Associate Professor in the History of Medicine and Health at University of South-Eastern Norway (USN). Since August 2021, she has been Associate Professor II at PANSOC, working with historical pandemics, focusing specifically on the 1918 flu and national legislation. She has a PhD from USN from 2020 where she focused on conceptual meaning making in historical education of doctors and nurses. For further information, please see her profile on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vibeke-narverud-nyborg-33b04183/

Contact jessicad@oslomet.no for a Zoom link.

PANSOC’s research cited in the new report from the Norwegian Corona-commission

masv on 27. April 2022

Nushagak, Alaska, summer of 1919. The picture is from one of several orphanages that popped up in Alaska after the terrible “Spanish flu” pandemic had killed a high number of parents and younger siblings leaving only a handful of children aged 5-14 in the most severely hit villages.
Source: Alaska Historical Library.

The Norwegian Corona-commission is citing PANSOC’S research on Indigenous peoples & Pandemics, including an opinion piece by Centre leader Mameund in Aftenposten 15 April 2020 (Urfolk vil trolig bli hardest rammet av koronapandemien | Svenn-Erik Mamelund (aftenposten.no) and a recently published journal article in the prestigious journal Population Studies by Mamelund and co-head of PANSOC, Jessica Dimka (New paper out: Pandemics are not great equalizers – Centre for Research on Pandemics & Society (PANSOC) (oslomet.no)).

Our research is cited in chapter 10, page 409. You can read the whole report here. NOU 2022: 5 (regjeringen.no)

From 15th of August 2022 to 30th of June 2023, Centre leader Mamelund will lead an interdisciplinary and international research group at Centre for Advance study (CAS). The title of the research project is Social Science Meets Biology: Indigenous People and Severe Influenza Outcomes – CAS