Articles - Long-Run Health Matters

January 29, 2022 February 6, 2022

Human development and the importance of public services in Colombia

We study human development in Colombia since 1838 and observe a sustained increase in well-being, mostly driven by rising life expectancy due to broader access to public sanitary services

Juliana Jaramillo-Echeverri & colleagues – January 30, 2022

January 17, 2022 January 17, 2022

The unequal impact of the Spanish flu in South Africa

Using a novel measure of healthcare inequality, this research shows that the 1918 Influenza epidemic in South Africa exacerbated existing large racial inequalities in access to institutionalized medical treatment.

Johan Fourie & Jonathan Jayes – January 17, 2022

December 20, 2021 January 8, 2022

Colonialism, forced labor and mortality in Java

The Dutch Cultivation System in nineteenth-century Java used forced labor to cultivate cash crops. This contribution argues that this colonial institution had important negative effects on the local peasantry’s health.

Pim de Zwart & colleagues – December 20, 2021

December 6, 2021 February 6, 2022

Industrialization, health and human welfare

Diverging trends in economic and health indicators complicate assessments of human welfare. This research applies a new metric to understand the evolution of human welfare in early-industrializing England.

Daniel Gallardo Albarrán & Herman de Jong – December 6, 2021

October 17, 2021 January 8, 2022

The historical roots of institutionalized healthcare and education in Sub-Saharan Africa, the cases of Cameroon and Zambia

Using newly collected evidence for colonial Zambia and Cameroon, we show how strong and lasting the effects of historical investments in education and healthcare are in explaining contemporary outcomes.

Jutta Bolt & colleagues – October 17, 2021

October 17, 2021 January 8, 2022

Lifting the burden of disease. The modernization of health in the Netherlands, 1854-1940

This contribution presents an innovative research project, titled Lifting the burden of disease, based on the individual level cause-of-death data for the city of Amsterdam between 1854 and 1940. These data create a unique historical laboratory in which we can study epidemiological change and its determinants.

Angélique Janssens – October 17, 2021

October 17, 2021 January 8, 2022

Urbanisation and disease: a perspective from nineteenth-century Britain

Does rapid urbanization cause rising mortality and worsening sanitation? Nineteenth-century Britain is often used as the classic exemplar of this problem, however we find little evidence that mortality rose in English cities during the Industrial Revolution.

Romola Davenport – October 17, 2021

October 17, 2021 January 8, 2022

Anthropometric history and the measurement of wellbeing

This paper examines the contribution made by studies of the history of human height to our understanding of the history of wellbeing and highlights the continuing importance of historical studies for the present day.

Bernard Harris – October 17, 2021

October 17, 2021 January 8, 2022

Does malnutrition cause disease?

Using rich historical data from the London Foundling Hospital 1892-1919, I find that malnutrition did not affect whether individuals contracted infectious diseases, but it did influence sickness severity from measles.

Eric Schneider – October 17, 2021

October 17, 2021 January 8, 2022

Augmented Human Development in the Modern World

I developed an index tracking human flourishing worldwide since 1870. I find that current inequality in human development is associated with past health improvements, rather than rates of economic growth.

Leandro Prados de la Escosura – October 17, 2021