The SNSF COST Grant grant has been awarded to support a groundbreaking project in Switzerland titled “Socio-demographic inequalities in the causes of death in Switzerland 1877-2024” as part of the international COST Action “CA22116 – The Great Leap.” This initiative tackles long-term health and mortality inequalities across Europe, covering demographic shifts from 1800 to 2022.
The project’s objectives are threefold:
Digitization of Historical Mortality Data (1877-1968): Previously unrecorded causes of death data from the City of Zurich and across Switzerland will be digitized, using a newly developed digital humanities tool for archival transcription. This tool will be shared openly with other COST members.
Data-Driven Research on Mortality Trends and Socio-Demographic Disparities: Using the digitized data, the research will investigate four key areas: long-term mortality trends, socio-demographic survival probabilities, spatial variations in mortality, and the effects of major historical events and social policies on causes of death.
Visualization Tool for Cross-National Comparisons: A flexible, open-access visualization tool will be developed to enable cross-national comparisons and provide insight into mortality disparities across regions and countries in Europe and beyond. This tool will be validated using the digitized data from Switzerland, along with additional data from the Netherlands and Denmark.