New Paper: Inclusion of Deprivation in Endemic-Epidemic Models

masv on 8. August 2025

Deprivation amplification theory suggests that the health effects of individual deprivation are amplified for people who live in areas with greater levels of deprivation. In a new paper in Vienna Yearbook of Population Research, first authored by former PANSOC post-doc, Maria Bekker-Nielsen Dunbar, we postulate that health (represented by norovirus incidence) is influenced and amplified by deprivation (a measure that includes socio-economic factors), and believe that this association has been neglected in surveillance models of infectious diseases. We construct a social epidemiological extension of a known surveillance model to evaluate the inclusion of deprivation in surveillance models using the German Index of Socio-economic Deprivation (GISD) in an endemic-epidemic model. We evaluate model types considered in the literature on the basis of Akaike’s information criterion. Our results suggest that a social epidemiological endemic-epidemic model with the GISD for enterically transmitted infections does not need to also include time-varying contact matrices as transmission weights.

You can read the paper here: Vienna Yearbook of Population Research 2025

Hvordan kan man være fremragende i EU/ERC, men for dårlig for NFR/FRIPRO?

masv on 30. June 2025

Senterleder Mamelund og flere andre har i de seneste årene fått middels gode karakter og avslag på søknader sendt til toppforskningssporet i Norges forskningsråd (FRIPRO), men intervjuer, toppkarakterer og tilslag på samme søknader i elitesporet i Forskningsrådet i EU (ERC). Hva kan være årsakene til de ulike vurderingene? I en kronikk i Khrono 30 juni, Er jeg toppforsker, bunnforsker eller begge deler?, skriver Mamelund at han tror at Norges forskningsråd (NFR) har noe å gå på i sine rutiner med å finne riktige og flere gode fagfeller og at de kan lære av ERC og be fagfellene om å gi mer konkrete og lengre tilbakemeldinger til søkerne. Særlig bør bruken av KI evalueres kritisk, hevder han også.

Les også et oppføgingsintervju ifbm med kronikken, Fremragende, sier ERC. For dårlig, mener Norges forskningsråd. — Føles som voksenkjeft, hvor både Mamelund og NFR utdyper om likhetene og forskjellene på FRIPRO vs. ERC.

New incoming MA-student

masv on 25. June 2025

Shahadat Hossain is a Master’s (MA) student in Nordic Social Policy and Global Sustainable Development at Oslo Metropolitan University. He has a background in Peace and Conflict Studies from Bangladesh. This experience has shaped his interest in the intersection of global health, health inequality, and long-term societal resilience.

His MA thesis project at the Centre for Research on Pandemics & Society (PANSOC) at OsloMet focuses on the “long-tail” of the 1918 flu. Titled “The Long-Tail Impact of the 1918 Spanish Flu on Global Mortality Patterns,” his research aims to analyze long-term excess mortality and epidemiological shifts in the decades following the pandemic.

His study spans 22 countries and regions across Europe, Asia, Oceania, South America, and the United States, drawing on monthly all-cause mortality data from 1906 to 1936. A key objective is to determine when pandemic-related mortality began to normalize and whether this transition followed a universal or context-specific trajectory.

A key part of his research involves assessing age-specific pneumonia and influenza (PI) mortality patterns. These patterns serve as indicators of when populations returned to a typical seasonal influenza profile—marked by a “U-shaped” mortality curve—in contrast to the “W-shaped” profile of the 1918 pandemic, which disproportionately affected young adults. Using Serfling regression models, Shahadat Hossain will estimate excess mortality and analyze the return to pre-pandemic norms.

Shahadat Hosssain will work with a rare historical dataset originally compiled by the French National Institute of Demographic Studies (INED) in 1954 and digitized by PANSOC. He’ll apply time-series methods to measure excess mortality, compare cross-national trends, and control for major contextual influences such as World War I, economic disruptions, civil conflicts, and other public health crises.

As part of his academic development, Shahadat Hosssain will also participate in a summer school at Charles University in Prague in August 2025, focusing on Harmonizing and Visualizing Data in Research on Health Inequalities. This experience will further enhance his competencies in historical data analysis, interdisciplinary research, and collaboration.

If you like to contact Shahadat Hosssain, please see here: Our team – Centre for Research on Pandemics & Society (PANSOC)

New CAS-project: Indigenous Peoples & Pandemics: Data Completeness & Vaccine Access Disparities

masv on 20. June 2025

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).

Nytt paper: “Role of Nonpharmaceutical Interventions during 1918–1920 Influenza Pandemic, Alaska, USA”

masv on 16. June 2025

Vi på PANSOC er skikkelig stolte av at Uddhav Kakhurel har publisert sitt master-arbeid i siste nummer av amerikanske Emerging Infectious Diseases. Arbeidet hans har Lisa Sattenspiel og Svenn-Erik Mamelund som medforfattere og er del av vårt CAS prosjekt 2022-23.

Du kan lese paperet her: Early Release – Role of Nonpharmaceutical Interventions during 1918–1920 Influenza Pandemic, Alaska, USA – Volume 31, Number 7—July 2025 – Emerging Infectious Diseases journal – CDC

Pandemics & Society Seminar on 5 June Postponed

masv on 29. May 2025

The final Pandemics & Society Seminar of the Spring 2025 series, due to be held on 5 June with a presentation by Hampton Gaddy (LSE), has been postponed until Fall 2025.

We would like to thank all presenters and attendees of the Spring series for their participation. We have a full and varied calendar of talks planned for the fall, and the seminar schedule will be circulated in due course. You can sign up for email notifications about the seminar series, including the Zoom details, here.

Book panel: Governing the Crisis. Narratives of COVID-19 in India

masv on 15. May 2025

Today Dr. Rahul Ranjan presented his book “Governing the Crisis: Narratives of Covid 19 in India” (Talyor & Francis, 2025) at a seminar held at Centre for Research on Pandemics & Society.

Dr. Ranjan is writer and assistant professor in Environmental and climate Justice at the Department of Human Geography, School of Geosciences, University if Edinburgh.

Discussions evolved around three main areas:

I. Law, Biomedical Emergencies, and Policy Response

II. Migration, Indigeneity, and Cultural Impact

II. Frontline Workers, Caste Dynamics, and Labour Force

New Paper: Socioeconomic inequalities in Chile during the COVID-19 pandemic: A regional analysis of income poverty | PLOS One

masv on 12. May 2025

This new paper is a collaboration with colleagues in Chile and Mexico. You can read it here:

Socioeconomic inequalities in Chile during the COVID-19 pandemic: A regional analysis of income poverty | PLOS One

he COVID-19 pandemic caused an unprecedented economic crisis, intensifying poverty levels in Latin America, particularly in Chile. This study examines the short- and long-term socioeconomic impacts of COVID-19 on income poverty in Chile, focusing on regional disparities, rurality, ethnicity, educational attainment, and immigration. Using data from the Chile National Socioeconomic Characterization Survey (CASEN) for 2017, 2020, and 2022, we analyzed poverty trends across the pre-pandemic, pandemic, and post-pandemic periods. We employed spatial clustering techniques with Local Moran’s I to detect poverty hotspots and applied logistic regression models to identify key sociodemographic factors associated with these hotspots. Our results reveal stark regional disparities, with disproportionately higher poverty rates among rural populations, Indigenous communities, and individuals with lower education levels or immigrant backgrounds. The proportion of individuals in poverty hotspots rose from 6.8% in 2017 to 8.6% in 2020, before slightly declining to 7.7% in 2022. Although emergency monetary subsidies helped reduce overall poverty from 10.8% in 2020 to 6.5% in 2022, these measures were insufficient to address deep-rooted structural inequalities. Our findings underscore the urgent need for targeted, long-term policies that go beyond temporary financial assistance and tackle systemic disparities linked to rurality, ethnicity, education, and immigration. Such measures are essential for achieving sustainable poverty reduction and fostering inclusive economic growth in Chile.

Mamelund co-author on two new papers

masv on 8. May 2025

Our Centre-leader is co-author on a new paper with several external collaborators, “The Role of Social Media in Mitigating the Long-Term Impact of Social Isolation on Mental and Cognitive Health in Older Adults During the COVID-19 Pandemic: The HUNT Study”,  International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry | Wiley Online Library

Summary

  • Those experiencing social isolation during the pandemic faced a larger decline in mental health, but not cognitive health, compared to those who were not isolated.
  • Staying connected through social media during the pandemic did not prevent mental health decline but was associated with a slower rate of cognitive decline in both socially isolated and not isolated individuals.
  • The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the limitations of relying only on digital solutions to maintain social connections, mental health, and cognitive function.

Mamelund was also co-author on another recently published paper, “A longitudinal cohort study on dispensed analgesic and psychotropic medications in older adults before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic: the HUNT study” in BMC Geriatrics.
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12877-025-05745-8