Thematic Workshop: Funding Oppertunities for Studying Inequality in Health
2024-10-28 - 2024-10-30 | ALDEMAR KNOSSOS ROYAL RESORT, Limenas Hersonissou, Chersonissos, Crete, Greece
We are excited to announce the Thematic Workshop: ‘Funding Oppertunities for Studying Inequality in Health’. This will be a dedicated workshop in which participants can brainstorm about funding opportunities tailored for our network. It will be a first opportunity to explore potential grants, create application timelines, and collaborate on ongoing proposal initiatives.

This workshop will take place as a side-meeting of the AISoLA Conference, offering an excellent opportunity for us to connect our work with broader academic discussions. We also encourage participants to contribute to the Digital Humanities track of the conference, which holds its sessions in the afternoons. Your presentations can be included in the post-conference proceedings, providing added visibility for our collective work. See here for more information: https://2024-isola.isola-conference.org/aisola-tracks/

Full Programme

Online Lecture 3: Life course determinants of mortality
2024-10-25 14:00 - 16:00 (Europe/Paris) | Teams
Lecturer: Prof. Tommy Bengtsson, Lund University

Content of the lecture/ workshop: The lecture starts with an overview of the long-term mortality decline contrasting underlying period and cohort factors. It reviews the studies from the 1930s onwards in which synthetic cohorts based on country data have been used, as well as later studies at regional levels, and their limitations. It then introduces life-cycle models and biological and social mechanisms to understand health patterns and gives examples using longitudinal individual-level data. It gives examples of how shocks in food supply and disease exposure in early life lead to social and economic disadvantages later in life as well as to poor health.

Objectives of the lecture/ workshop: On a general level the student will acquire knowledge about theories explaining the role of life-course factors for health and well-being. It will also introduce ways to apply causal modeling combining contextual information with longitudinal individual level data.

Requirements: Active participation, and it is advisable to review two articles to facilitate an informed discussion during class.

Recommended reading:

Barker, D. J. P. (2001) Fetal and infant origins of adult disease. Monatsschrift Kinderheilkunde, 149, Supplement 1, S2-S6

Bengtsson, T. (2015) Mortality: The Great Historical Decline. In International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 868-783

Bengtsson, T., & Lindström, M. (2003) Airborne infectious diseases during infancy and mortality in later life in southern Sweden, 1766-1894. International Journal of Epidemiology, 32, 2, 286-294

Crimmins, E. M., & Finch, C. E. (2006). Infection, inflammation, height, and longevity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 103, 2, 498-503

Helgertz, J & Bengtsson, T (2019), The Long-Lasting Influenza: The Impact of Fetal Stress During the 1918 Influenza Pandemic on Socioeconomic Attainment and Health in Sweden, 1968–2012, Demography, 56, 4, 1389-1425

Helgertz, J., & Nilsson, A. (2019) The effect of birth weight on hospitalizations and sickness absences: a longitudinal study of Swedish siblings. Journal of Population Economics 32, 53–178

Kuh, D. & Ben-Shlomo, Y. (eds.) (2004) A life course approach to chronic disease epidemiology. Oxford: OUP, Ch 2, 15-37, Ch 16, 371-395

Lazuka, V, Quaranta, L & Bengtsson, T (2016), ‘Fighting infectious disease: Evidence from Sweden 1870-1940’, Population and Development Review, 42, 1, 27-52

You can download the presentation by Tommy Bengtsson in .pdf

Online Lecture 1: The epidemiological transition (rescheduled)
2024-10-18 14:00 - 16:00
Lecturer: Prof. Isabelle Devos, Ghent University
Content of the lecture/ workshop: This lecture combines theoretical content with active learning to help students understand the epidemiological transition theory in a global and historical context. Special emphasis is placed on assessing the quality of the cause-of-death data when examining the epidemiological transition.

Objectives of the lecture/ workshop: This lecture aims to allow students to think critically about the theory, its updates and derivatives (e.g. health transition) and potential factors driving the transition (economic development, public health, medical progress, etc.).
Requirements: It is advisable to review the articles to facilitate an informed discussion during class.
Recommended reading:

Omran Abdel R. (1971). The Epidemiologic Transition: A Theory of the Epidemiology of Population Change. The Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly, 49(4), 509–538. https://doi.org/10.2307/3349375
Mackenbach Johan P. (2022). Omran’s ‘Epidemiologic Transition’ 50 Years on. International Journal of Epidemiology, 51(4),1054–1057, https://doi.org/10.1093/ije/dyac020

Optional reading and assignment:

Weisz George, Olszynko-Gryn Jesse (2010). The Theory of Epidemiologic Transition: the Origins of a Citation Classic. Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, 65(3), 287–326. https://doi.org/10.1093/jhmas/jrp058
Explore the trends in mortality for one infectious and one non-infectious disease of a European country of your choice since the early 20th century. Compare these findings with those from a country in a different European region, and a non-western country. Possible data source: WHO mortality database (https://platform.who.int/mortality/themes/theme-details/MDB) and the cause-of-death data series of the Human Mortality database (https://www.mortality.org/Data/HCD).

You can download the presentation by prof. Isabelle Devos in .pdf

Online Lecture 2: Understanding inequalities in health
2024-10-11 14:00 - 16:00
Lecturer: Prof. Jonas Minet Kinge, University of Oslo
Content of the lecture/ workshop: This lecture combines theoretical content with active learning to help students understand inequalities in health in a global and historical context.

Objectives of the lecture/ workshop: This lecture aims to allow students to think critically about how inequlaities in health are created.
Requirements: It is advisable to review the articles to facilitate an informed discussion during class.
Recommended reading:

Jonas Minet Kinge et al., ‘Parental income and mental disorders in children and adolescents: prospective register-based study’, International Journal of Epidemiology, 50, 5 (2021) 1615–1627, https://doi.org/10.1093/ije/dyab066
Jonas Minet Kinge et al., ‘Association of Household Income With Life Expectancy and Cause-Specific Mortality in Norway, 2005-2015′, JAMA, 321, 19 (2019) 1916-1925. https://doi.org/doi:10.1001/jama.2019.4329

Optional reading:

Sean A.P. Clouston and Bruce G. Link, ‘A Retrospective on Fundamental Cause Theory: State of the Literature and Goals for the Future’, Annual Review of Sociology, 47, (2021). https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-soc-090320-094912

Thematic Workshop: Tuberculosis: The White Death as a Social Disease
2024-09-26 - 2024-09-28 | School of Architecture, Design, and Urban Planning (University of Sassari), Bastioni Marco Polo 77, Alghero, Sassari, Italy
Background:
Tuberculosis has been a significant public health concern, affecting millions of people worldwide throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and even nowadays in certain parts of the world. It has captivated attention due to its profound impact and intriguing debates. Tuberculosis held a dominant position as the leading cause of death at various stages of life, especially during young adulthood. Additionally, the persistent nature of tuberculosis led to a high prevalence and burden of the disease. Unresolved discussions have centred around the key factors influencing geographical, gender, age, and temporal disparities in mortality, with a particular focus on the role of resistance (which can be affected by nutrition as well as other interfering diseases) versus exposure. These debates encompass differentials in tuberculosis mortality between men and women, disparities in urban-rural and other geographical patterns, and the underlying factors contributing to the decline in mortality during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. One central point of contention concerns the reasons behind higher death rates from tuberculosis among women compared to men, and whether this disparity was attributable to inherent female susceptibility, inadequate nutrition, or differential exposure. A prominent viewpoint posited that the elevated tuberculosis rates among women resulted from their weaker bargaining power within households, leading to inferior nutrition (McNay, Humphries and Klasen 2005). The geographic patterns of tuberculosis mortality were not straightforward either. Researchers have suggested that high tuberculosis rates in rural areas could be attributed to the return migration of individuals (especially women) who had contracted the disease in urban settings (Cronje 1984; Hinde 2015). Nutrition also emerged as a factor implicated in the substantial decline of tuberculosis during the late nineteenth century (McKeown 1976). The decline in tuberculosis has traditionally been also attributed to improving living standards, better housing, hygiene and sanitary reforms, and improvements in environmental conditions (among others, Gronjé 1984; Pooley and Pooley 1984; Puranen 1991; Vögele 1988).
Despite the severity and significant mortality associated with tuberculosis in historical populations, the investigation of the disease’s demographic characteristics has unfortunately received relatively limited attention. Significant gaps exist in the available evidence concerning the trend of tuberculosis mortality and morbidity, with a predominant focus on historical North-Western Europe, specifically Britain and/or North America. This leaves a noticeable dearth of information from Eastern and Southern Europe, but also beyond Europe (i.e., South America, Asia, and Africa), hindering a comprehensive understanding of the disease’s impact in these regions.
The workshop is organized by the IUSSP Scientific Panel on ‘Epidemics and Contagious Diseases: The Legacy of the Past’, in collaboration with the University of Sassari, Italy and our COST-Action GREATLEAP.
The workshop will be held in Alghero, Sardinia, 26-27 September 2024, hosted by the Department of Economic and Business Sciences at the University of Sassari.
Full programme
Organisers:

Lucia Pozzi (University of Sassari, Italy)
Michail Raftakis (University of Bologna, Italy)
Gabriele Ruiu (University of Sassari, Italy)

If you have any questions regarding the workshop, please contact lpozzi@uniss.it, michail.raftakis@unibo.it, and gruiu@uniss.it.

Virtual Mentoring Event
2024-08-26 15:00
The first virtual event for future mentors and mentees of the COST Action Great Leap will take place on Monday 26 August 2024 at 15:00 CET. The goal is to give both mentors and mentees an opportunity to meet at least on-line and find out how they can help each other. We have asked a variety of senior researchers to present their expertise and invited young scholars to get in touch with their potential mentors.
Mentors are going to give a 2-3 minute introduction to their research expertise with focus on the potential cooperation with mentees. The following mentors will attend:

Neville Calleaj – data sources for health inequality analysis, European Health Data Space
Isabelle Devos – epidemiological transition, historical sources, historical demography
Fevzi Esen – data analytics and data pre-processing
Ivan Miškulin – health inequalities, public health, health organizations, addiction, and vaccination
Maarten van Wijhe – quantitative methods, epidemiology, public health, pandemics
Neville Calleaj – data sources for health inequality analysis, European Health Data Space
Neslihan Önder Özdemir – proofreading English texts, academic writing in medicine in English

Afterwards mentees will join them in the break-out rooms.
Pleas register using the sign-up form
Join Zoom Meeting
https://norceresearch-no.zoom.us/j/65744088340?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 657 4408 8340
Passcode: [REDACTED]

2024-07-24 15:00 - 17:00
Virtual Launch of the Historical International Classification for Diseases (ICD10h)
After working determinedly on the ICD10h coding- and classification system, before and during the SHiP project and in the Great Leap era, working group 2 has finished the first version of the ICD10h system and the accompanying documentation/user guide. We are happy to announce that we will officially launch the online publication of the ICD10h on July 24th at 3 pm CET . All Great Leap members and others to whom this could be of interest are invited to join the online launch. During the launch, we will give a brief demonstration of the ICD10h and the documentation. Of course, we will also show you where you can find all the necessary files to use the system yourself. On top of that, the meeting will outline what else to expect from working group 2 in the future and how you can be of help, for example by using the ICD10h to code causes of death in your own language. We are excited to share this first version and we hope that many of you will choose to celebrate this moment with us!
Zoom: https://unige.zoom.us/j/7256701704
Password: [REDACTED]

2024-06-24 09:00 - 2024-07-04 17:00 | lund university
Summer Training School: ‘Research on health inequalities using longitudinal demographic data’
In Collaboration with the European Society for Historical Demography the COST-Action Great Leap organises a summer training school on ‘Research on health inequalities using longitudinal demographic data’. It equips students with theories, sources and methods for analyzing inequalities in health. The course provides hands-on workshops in data management of longitudinal micro-level data, event-history analysis, and analysis of causes of death. In addition, a large part of the summer school is devoted to a team project.

Application
Application deadline is 1 April 2024. Information of admittance will be sent on 30 April 2024. Grants (offered by our Action) that cover (a part of) the travel and lodging and a limited number of fee waivers are available for applicants who need financial support.

Call for participants
See the call for participants for more information.
↓ Call for participants

Contact information
For more information, please contact secretary@eshd.eu.

2024-05-02 08:30 - 18:00 | Radboud University, Nijmegen, Nederland
Although this event has passed, click below to explore:

The agenda we followed.
The posters that were displayed at the event.
The powerpoint of WG5.

Kick-off Meeting of the COST-Action GreatLeap (hybrid)
We are thrilled to extend a warm invitation to all stakeholders and interested parties to join us for the official Kick-off Meeting of ‘The Great Leap. Multidisciplinary approaches to health inequalities, 1800-2022’, a groundbreaking COST-Action initiative led by Radboud University.
The Great Leap has been selected by the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) to undertake a comprehensive exploration of the historical origins and driving factors behind health inequalities across regions and countries in Europe and beyond. Our aim is to foster collaboration, share insights, and catalyse action in addressing pressing health disparities through providing a historical long-term perspective. In sum, this Kick-off Meeting marks the beginning of an exciting four-year journey toward understanding health inequalities using cause-specific data through a historical lens.
Agenda Highlights

Introduction to the COST-Action GreatLeap and its objectives;
Overview and updates of the Working Groups;
In depth and hands-on parallel sessions of the Working Groups;
Interactive poster sessions to facilitate networking and collaboration
start of our mentoring programme

We invite you to be part of this vital conversation and contribute your expertise to our collective efforts.
