Workshop ‘Accuracy of Cause-of-Death Registration: Everyday Conditions, Crises, and Epidemics
2026-03-19 12:00 - 2026-03-20 16:30 (Europe/Paris)
The accurate registration of deaths has long been a challenge for researchers. Crises, such as epidemics, often led to a systematic underestimation of the disease itself- either to downplay its spread or due to misclassification – while illnesses with similar symptoms were overreported. Likewise, long after the epidemic had passed, diseases with comparable symptoms could be mistaken for new epidemic outbreaks when they were not. Moreover, these kind of crises brought overwhelming workloads, administrative breakdowns, and, in many cases, the deaths of the very officials responsible for maintaining death records. In this sense, death certificates and other records provide crucial insights into mortality patterns, yet their reliability is often compromised by inconsistent reporting practices, evolving medical knowledge, the complex nature of causes-of-death and the social context.

This workshop seeks contributions that explore the reliability of (historical) death registration, the handling of multiple causes of death, and the methodological challenges of working with such data within an epidemic context.
We invite submissions that engage with a range of questions, including but not limited to:

How reliable were death registration practices during crises (such as the Black Death, cholera or yellow fever outbreaks, the 1918 influenza pandemic, or the HIV/AIDS crisis)?

How were multiple causes of death recorded, and how should researchers interpret these records?

What biases or gaps exist in historical registration systems, and how can they be addressed?

What methodological approaches can improve our understanding of mortality (during crises)?

What broader implications do historical findings have for contemporary registration practices?

Papers may present new empirical findings, methodological discussions, or theoretical perspectives. We particularly encourage interdisciplinary work that combines historical demography, epidemiology, and archival research.

If you have any questions, please contact the local organiser Joana Maria Pujadas Mora (jpujadasmo@uoc.edu).

Hands-on Workshop ‘Transcribing the Past: Citizen Scientists and Automation in Historical Demography’ (2)
2026-03-26 09:00 - 17:00
Interested researchers, practitioners, and citizen scientists start working on a best practice manual during this workshop, which will be published in Historical Life Course Studies.

GREATLEAP Conference: Bridging Perspectives and Connecting Threads on Historical Health Inequalities
2026-05-11 - 2026-05-13 | Babeș-Bolyai University, 11 Napoca Street, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
We are pleased to invite contributions to the GREATLEAP Conference which will take place on 11-13 May 2026 at Babeș-Bolyai University, Centre for Population Studies, Cluj-Napoca, Romania.

The event will bring together scholars and practitioners to engage in dialogue on the long-term historical patterns and contemporary dynamics of health and death inequalities. Our aim is to bridge disciplines, methods, and data to deepen our understanding of the evolution and determinants of inequalities in health and mortality across historical time, and to explore how past realities shape today’s disparities in health outcomes. A main part of the conference will therefore be devoted to meetings of the working groups of GREATLEAP.
