In a call for expression of interest for writing MSCA proposals on pandemic studies this Spring, we got 20 applications and offered three candidates the opportunity to work on their applications with us. Today the candidates presented their drafts at an internal PANSOC webinar. We all believe that they have high chances of success when they submit their proposals in September.
Ana Vuin: Regional health professionals’ experiences during the Covid-19 crisis: Is there a mismatch in between theory and practice?
Alexandra Blinkova: Religious Views on COVID-19 as a risk factor in prevention and spread of pandemic
Xanthi Tsoukli: The effects of the 1918 influenza pandemic on Poverty and Crime: Evidence from Norway
Professor Lisa Sattenspiel, University of Missouri, USA, will present on “Comparing COVID and the 1918 flu in rural vs. urban counties of Missouri”.
If you wish to attend this Zoom-webinar, please send us an e-mail at: masv@oslomet.no
Blurb: Socioeconomic and demographic factors within communities strongly influence infectious disease patterns. I describe here how such factors affected the spread of the 1918 influenza and current COVID-19 pandemics in the state of Missouri, emphasizing the identification of attributes that may have differentially affected rural vs. urban populations. Results suggest that epidemic patterns were affected at both time periods by a combination of factors such as degree of rurality, distance from the major urban centers of Kansas City and St. Louis, availability of medical resources, and level of ethnic diversity.
Folkehelseinstituttet har kommet med ny rapport og de finner samme resultat som i UK: bakenforliggende sykdommer og sosiale forhold man har registerdata på, kan ikke forklare den høye sykdomsbyrde for enkelte fødelandsgrupper. Mer forskning trengs for å finne mekanismene for forskjellene.
Senterlederen har blitt intervjuet om rapporten og om hvorfor innvandrere er så utsatte for COVID-19 pandemien i Avisa Oslo. Les mer her:
Ben Schneider is an economic historian researching jobs in the past to inform policymaking for the future of work. He is in the final stages of his PhD in Economic and Social History at the University of Oxford and will join the Centre for Research on Pandemics & Society (PANSOC) as a postdoctoral researcher in fall 2021.
Tell us about your project
Work is a fundamental part of human life, but economic research on the impacts of pandemics has focused on the macroeconomy and, within labor economics, unemployment. My project analyzes how jobs changed during the 1918–19 influenza pandemic and the current COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. This research will examine how the quality of jobs changed and whether working conditions become more unequal during disease outbreaks.
Analysis of job quality is a growing field and builds on the commitment of UN members to achieve ‘decent work for all’ by 2030 as part of the Sustainable Development Goals. The International Labour Organization, European Trades Union Confederation, and other nonprofits, government bodies, and labor collectives have developed metrics to capture whether people are employed in ‘good jobs’ since the late 1990s. In my PhD, I construct a parallel method to measure ‘good jobs’ in the past, examine how technological developments impacted job quality, and derive policy-relevant conclusions for the future of work.
My postdoctoral research project at PANSOC will combine historical analysis of job quality during 1918–19 with research into job changes during COVID-19. Using a combination of descriptive and quantitative evidence in a set of case study jobs, the project will show how aspects of work such as supervision, organization, hazard pay, and the crucial element of occupational risk changed over the course of the two pandemics.
Why are you joining PANSOC?
The opportunity to collaborate and learn from researchers at PANSOC and the broader Work Research Institute (AFI) at OsloMet make this the ideal place to carry out research on the effects of pandemics on work. I am excited to join the growing PANSOC team and to learn from colleagues with world-leading expertise in historical and contemporary pandemic research. OsloMet’s focus on applied and policy-relevant research is also a great fit for my approach, and I am looking forward to conversations with AFI colleagues about research and interventions to improve access to good jobs.
What are your plans for a future dream-project in academia?
My long-run research goal is to use social science methods and evidence from past and current examples of forces (like disease outbreaks and technological change) that transform occupations to inform policymaking and advocacy. I am developing projects alongside my current research that demonstrate the importance of studying history for understanding the future of work, including research that extends analysis of historical job quality to new examples that can contribute to contemporary debates in both developed and developing countries.
On this podcast the Head of PANSOC spoke with Lee Mordechai & Merle Eisenberg about historical demography in context of the 1918 flu pandemic, how to (try to) use research to influence policy, and outreach. Listen here:
Please find the talk given by Rick J. Mourits, International Institute for Social History, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, on: “Occupational characteristics and spatial inequalities in mortality during 1918-9 influenza pandemic in the Netherlands” here:
Margarida Pereira is a Health Geographer with a Masters in Geographic Information Systems and other masters in Public Health. Margarida has finished her PhD in Human Geography recently and is going to integrate the team of the Centre for Research on Pandemics & Society (PANSOC) as a post-doc researcher.
Tell us about your project
The firsts COVID-19 outbreaks occurred in urban areas, which confirmed that these areas gather the perfect conditions for fast dissemination of infectious diseases by being extremely populated areas, with high levels of pollution and with high mobility rates. Also, at an early stage of COVID-19 pandemic, physicians and scientist observed that individuals with obesity, not only were at higher risk of contracting severe illness but also had increased odds of dying. Obesity was declared by WHO as a world epidemic in 2000, and the highest rates of obesity are observed precisely in urban areas. Hence, such areas became naturally privileged settings for the uprising of the 2020 syndemic of COVID-19 and obesity. Therefore, this research project intends to deepen the knowledge about COVID-19 pandemic and its association with a pre-existent major public health concern – obesity – in urban contexts, using an ecological approach.
Why are you joining PANSOC?
I have recently finished my PhD in Human Geography at the University of Coimbra (Portugal) that focused specifically on how the urban environment impacts individuals’ weight status. And, as it is well-known now, obesity is an important risk factor for severe cases of COVID-19. Therefore, I started to draft a project to investigate the mutual determinants of both obesity and COVID-19 in urban areas following a theoretical syndemic framework.
When the call for post-doc position opened at PANSOC, I immediately thought it would be the perfect place to develop my project and fortunately I was given the opportunity to carry out my research here. I am sure that PANSOC is the ideal host centre for my project and that it will provide the necessary support to achieve its goals successfully, considering the vast experience in pandemic studies in the last years.
What are your plans for a future dream-project in academia?
Honestly, I see the present research project as the beginning of a long path investigating in depth the means by which urban areas impact individuals’ health and its implications in both the prevalence of infectious (COVID-19) and non-communicable diseases (obesity) in these areas. I imagine myself pursuing an academic career dedicated to the study of population health in urban areas and hopefully with the support of PANSOC along the time.
I am also interested in studying how living in urban contexts imposes certain lifestyles, more or less healthy, i.e., what are the implications of living in areas with different urban configurations in the individuals’ health-related behaviours and choices.
Senterleder Mamelund har uttalt seg om smitten i Sarpsborg. Hvorfor er det så vanskelig å få kontroll på smitten? Har det noe med sosiale forhold å gjøre? Les mer i saken i Sarpsborg Arbeiderblad
Rick J. Mourits, International Institute for Social History, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, presents on: “Occupational characteristics and spatial inequalities in mortality during 1918-9 influenza pandemic in the Netherlands”
Other authors: Auke Rijpma, Ruben Schalk, Ingrid K. van Dijk, Richard L. Zijdeman
Send e-mail to masv@oslomet.no to get the Zoom-link
Blurb: More than a century ago, the 1918-9 influenza pandemic swept across the globe and took the lives of over 50 million people. When the pandemic finally subsided in 1919, the “Spanish” influenza pandemic had taken over 50 million lives worldwide. A century later it is still not fully understood how socioeconomic differences affected the mortality risk. Multiple studies have found no straightforward relation between socioeconomic status and mortality rates during the 1918-9 pandemic. We argue that this is no surprise, as the mechanisms affecting the health gradient by socioeconomic status observed today were generally not helpful in the 1918-9 influenza pandemic. Social status gives individuals the opportunity to more optimally avoid getting ill, resist infections, and be cured diseases (Johansson, 2000). However, two of these three resources – resistance and cures – were little or not available during the 1918-9 influenza pandemic. However, occupational and spatial differences in exposure may have mattered in determining individual mortality risk. In this work we use data from the Dutch civil registry to explore the influence of occupational characteristics including exposure to others at work and whether or not work occurred in an enclosed space as well as regional mortality differences. Findings suggest that occupational characteristics affected the likelihood of infection and mortality within the autumn wave, both in less-hit municipalities and the strongest-hit municipalities. Taken together, our findings suggest a stronger socioeconomic pattern in the pandemic than suggested by previous literature.
