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Abstract BackgroundResearch on the 1918 influenza pandemic often focuses exclusively on pandemic years, reducing the potential long‐term insights about the pandemic. It is critical to frame the 1918 pandemic within the underlying population dynamics, health, and sociocultural context to understand what factors contributed to pandemic mortality and survivorship, with respect to observed inequality, and consequences of the pandemic. Materials & MethodsIndividual death records and censuses from The Rooms Provincial Archives and Memorial University of Newfoundland Digital Archives for three major causes of death—influenza and pneumonia; tuberculosis; and pooled bronchitis, measles, and whooping cough—were collected for three periods in the early 20th century: pre‐pandemic (1909–11), pandemic (March 1918–Janaury 1919), and post‐pandemic (1933–1935). We calculated pooled age‐standardized mortality rates and changes in pre‐ to post‐pandemic mortality rates by region. We fit Kaplan–Meier and Cox proportional hazards models to each period, controlling for age, cause of death, and region. ResultsPandemic mortality was higher than that of pre‐ and post‐pandemic periods. Post‐pandemic mortality was significantly lower than pre‐pandemic mortality in all regions, except Western Newfoundland. Survival was lowest during the pandemic and increased significantly post‐pandemic (p < 0.0001), with no significant differences among regions during the pandemic (p = 0.32). Significant differences in survivorship in 1933–1935 were driven by increasing differences in survivorship for P&I among the regions more than other causes of death. DiscussionMyopic perspectives of pandemics can obscure our understanding of observed outcomes. Inequalities in respiratory disease mortality are evident in pre‐ and post‐pandemic periods, but these would have been missed in investigations of the pandemic period alone.
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Sex differences in adult famine mortality in medieval London
Abstract ObjectivesRecurrent famine events during the medieval period might have contributed to excess mortality during the Black Death in London, England (c. 1349–1350). Previous research using conventional methods of age estimation revealed that adult males experienced lower risks of mortality under “normal” (attritional) but not famine mortality conditions following the Black Death. However, given the biases inherent in conventional age estimation methods, this study reassesses sex differences in risks of medieval adult famine mortality using ages estimated via transition analysis, which avoids some of the limitations of conventional age estimation methods. Materials and MethodsWe apply hazards analysis (the Gompertz model of adult mortality) to ages estimated for human skeletal remains (n= 1245) from London cemeteries dated to the pre‐Black Death (c. 1000–1250 CE) and post‐Black Death (c. 1350–1540 CE) periods. ResultsThe results reveal no sex differences in risks of mortality before the Black Death but indicate that adult males faced lower risks of mortality after the Black Death during conditions of normal and famine mortality. ConclusionsThese findings largely support those of our previous research, which suggested that selective mortality during the Black Death or sex‐biased improvements in standard of living following the epidemic reduced risk of mortality for adult males in the post‐Black Death period under normal mortality conditions. However, the use of transition analysis age estimates also revealed a reduced risk of mortality for post‐Black Death adult males under famine conditions.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1722491
- PAR ID:
- 10458632
- Publisher / Repository:
- Wiley Blackwell (John Wiley & Sons)
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- American Journal of Physical Anthropology
- Volume:
- 171
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 0002-9483
- Format(s):
- Medium: X Size: p. 164-169
- Size(s):
- p. 164-169
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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