Svenn-Erik Mamelund

• Professor
• Professor in Pandemic Studies (Full)Phd in historical demography at OsloMet - Oslo Metropolitan University

The paper presents the first results from the European project VACSATC which aimed to track parental attitudes on vaccinations across several European countries. We compared five cross-sectional surveys of parents with children less than 3 years of age in England, Norway, Poland, Spain and Sweden carried out during 2008-2009. Data were collected fr...

Seasonal influenza takes its most pronounced toll on children and the elderly, giving the crude age-specific mortality rates a U-shape. In contrast, A(H1N1) 1918-20 pandemic mortality was W-shaped. When adjusting for the seasonal baseline, young adults had higher but the elderly lower than expected mortality. The lower than expected mortality for t...

The baby boom of 1920 has received less attention than that following the Second World War, and was for long thought to be a simple catching up of the marriages and births that the war had prevented, as part of a gradual return to normalcy. Yet this baby boom occurred with similar intensity in non-belligerent countries. Other lines of enquiry thus...

Some of the most severely affected communities in the world during the 1918-19 influenza pandemic were in Labrador and Alaska. Although these two regions are on the opposite ends of North America, a cultural continuum in the Inuit populations extends throughout the North American Arctic. Both regions contain other population groups, however, and be...

The Spanish influenza pandemic of 1918-19 was one of the most devastating diseases in history, killing perhaps as many as 50-100 million people worldwide. Much of the literature since 1918 has favored the view that mortality from Spanish influenza was class neutral. This view has prevailed, even though several contemporary surveys showed that there...

Background There is a growing concern and debate over the inappropriate use of analgesics and psychotropic medications by older adults, especially those with dementia. The long-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown measures on these prescriptions remain uncertain. Aim The primary aim was to examine changes in the prescription of analg...

In this article, the authors investigate the 1918–20 influenza pandemic in the federal government’s nonreservation Indian boarding schools. Nonreservation boarding schools, which served approximately 6,200 Indigenous youths in 1919, provide a particularly fruitful terrain for analysis due to the detailed records, reports, and correspondence they sh...

Background Indigenous populations globally face significant health disparities compared to non-Indigenous groups, primarily due to marginalization and limited access to healthcare. In Mexico, which is home to the largest Indigenous population in the Americas, these disparities were further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, with impacts intensif...

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of effectively monitoring and understanding its impact on the general population, especially regarding mental health and well-being. The isolation measures implemented during the lockdown significantly affected people's lives by changing habits and circumstances. To address this challenge, this p...

Background This study aimed to explore the reasons adults in the general population, influenza risk groups (RGs) and health care workers (HCWs) in Norway give for their vaccination choices and whether these reasons vary between groups or over time in order to further improve influenza vaccination coverage. Methods Respondents of a nationally repre...

Background Current literature presents mixed effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on Indigenous communities. We aim to highlight potential disparities and temporal shifts in both the impact of COVID-19 and vaccine uptake among hospitalized Indigenous populations in Chile. Methods We conducted an observational analysis utilizing 1,598,492 hospitalizati...

Influential accounts of the 1918 influenza pandemic state that many Pacific populations escaped the pandemic uninfected. In particular, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Kiribati, Vanuatu, and New Caledonia are supposed to have escaped the pandemic in 1918–20, due to an Australian policy of protective sequestration. Accounts from local...

The 1918-20 influenza pandemic devastated Alaska’s Indigenous populations. We report on quantitative analyses of pandemic deaths due to pneumonia and influenza (P&I) using information from Alaska death certificates dating between 1915 and 1921 (n=7,147). Goals include a reassessment of pandemic death numbers, analysis of P&I deaths beyond 1919, est...

Background Older adults and people with dementia were anticipated to be particularly unable to use health and care services during the lockdown period following the COVID-19 pandemic. To better prepare for future pandemics, we aimed to investigate whether the use of health and care services changed during the pandemic and whether those at older age...

In Alaska, the 1918–20 influenza pandemic was devastating, with mortality rates up to 90% of the population, while in other arctic regions in northern Sweden and Norway mortality was considerably lower. We investigated the timing and age-patterns in excess mortality in Greenland during the period 1918–21 and compare these to other epidemics and the...

Aims This protocol describes a forthcoming systematic review of the question: ‘What are the long-term effects of historical influenza pandemics on mental health, resulting either from illness itself or the social or economic effects of pandemics and public health responses?’ Methods We will review studies that investigate associations between infl...

Background: Several studies have documented that specific Indigenous groups have been disproportionately affected by previous pandemics. The objective of this paper is to describe the protocol to be used in a review and meta-analysis of the literature on Indigenous groups and influenza. Using this protocol as a guide, a future study will provide a...

Background The COVID-19 pandemic has become one of the most devastating worldwide crises. The pandemic has heavily affected the most vulnerable groups, including Indigenous communities. Our study aimed to evaluate the attitudes and behaviors relating to care and prevention of COVID-19 in a predominantly Indigenous university population in Mexico....

Objective: The objective of this study was to assess whether socioeconomic status still remain a barrier to COVID-19 vaccination in eastern Oslo, Norway. Study design: A cross-section study. Methods: We conducted a web-based survey among the residents of six eastern parishes in Oslo, Norway. Text (SMS) messages were sent to 59978 potential par...

The 1918–20 pandemic influenza killed 50–100 million people worldwide, but mortality varied by ethnicity and geography. In Norway, areas dominated by Sámi experienced 3–5 times higher mortality than the country’s average. We here use data from burial registers and censuses to calculate all-cause excess mortality by age and wave in two remote Sámi a...

Aims To examine influenza vaccination coverage among risk groups (RG) and health care workers (HCW), and study social and demographic patterns of vaccination coverage over time. Methods Vaccination coverage was estimated by self-report in a nationally representative telephone survey among 14 919 individuals aged 18–79 years over seven influenza se...

This systematic review main goal is to identify the common risk factors of obesity and COVID-19 overall, and highlight the ones related to urban settings specifically, using a syndemic framework. COVID-19 highlighted the interaction between infectious diseases and non-communicable diseases. We hypothesise that obesity and COVID-19 share determinant...

Background Vaccination is key to reducing the spread and impacts of COVID-19 and other infectious diseases. Migrants, compared to majority populations, tend to have lower vaccination rates, as well as higher infection disease burdens. Previous studies have tried to understand these disparities based on factors such as misinformation, vaccine hesita...

Objective Indigenous populations have been disproportionately affected during pandemics. We investigated COVID-19 mortality estimates among Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations at national and sub-national levels in Mexico. Methods We obtained data from the Ministry of Health of Mexico on 2,173,036 laboratory-confirmed RT-PCR positive COVID-1...

Alves DE, Mamelund S-E, Dimka J, et al. Indigenous peoples and pandemics. Scandinavian Journal of Public Health. May 2022. doi:10.1177/14034948221087095

Background: Vaccination is key to reduce the spread and impacts of COVID-19 and other infectious diseases. Migrants, compared to majority populations, tend to have lower vaccination rates, as well as higher infection disease burdens. Previous studies have tried to understand these disparities based on factors such as misinformation, vaccine hesitan...

Background: Excess mortality quantifies the overall mortality impact of a pandemic. Mortality data have been accessible for many countries in recent decades, but few continuous data have been available for longer periods. Objective: To assess the historical dimension of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 for 3 countries with reliable death count data...

Abstract Aims: This study aimed to estimate the size of the risk group for severe influenza and to describe the social patterning of the influenza risk group in Norway, defined as everyone ⩾65 years of age and individuals of any age with certain chronic conditions (medical risk group). Methods: Study data came from a nationally representative surv...

Call for Expression of Interest for a joint application under the EU Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action Postdoctoral Fellowship scheme – Call: MSCA-PF-2022 Centre for Research on Pandemics & Society - PANSOC (oslomet.no/en/pansoc) is an Oslo Metropolitan Centre of Research Excellence studying the societal aspects of pandemics. PANSOC currently consist...

Despite common perceptions to the contrary, pandemic diseases do not affect populations indiscriminately. In this paper, we review literature produced by demographers, historians, epidemiologists, and other researchers on disparities during the 1918–20 influenza pandemic and the Covid-19 pandemic. Evidence from these studies demonstrates that lower...

Background The objective of this study is to document whether and to what extent there is an association between socioeconomic status (SES) and disease outcomes in the last five influenza pandemics. Methods/principle findings The review included studies published in English, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish. Records were identified through systematic...

Estimating excess mortality allows quantification of overall pandemic impact. For recent decades, mortality data are easily accessible for most industrialized countries, but only a few countries have continuous data available for longer periods. Since Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland were militarily neutral and not involved in combat during both worl...

Estimating excess mortality allows quantification of overall pandemic impact. For recent decades, mortality data are easily accessible for most industrialized countries, but only a few countries have continuous data available for longer periods. Since Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland were militarily neutral and not involved in combat during both worl...

Background: Several studies have documented that indigenous groups have been disproportionally hit by previous pandemics, with some exceptions. The objective of this review and meta-analysis is to provide a comprehensive historical overview of pre-COVID impact of influenza on indigenous groups by combining data from the last five influenza pandemic...

The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are amplified among socially vulnerable groups, including international migrants, in terms of both disease transmission and outcomes and the consequences of mitigation measures. Migrants are overrepresented in COVID-19 laboratory-confirmed cases, hospital admissions, intensive care treatment and death statistics...

In the absence of vaccines to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, in 2020 governments had to respond by rely on non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs). Socioeconomic inequalities likely influenced the uptake of NPIs. Using Norwegian survey data, we study whether income was associated with increased handwashing, keeping 1 m distance, using facemasks incre...

Background Prior research has highlighted racial and ethnic disparities in H1N1 vaccination in the United States. Our study adds to this literature by utilizing an intersectionality framework to examine the joint influence of race and sex on H1N1 vaccination beliefs and behaviors among non-Hispanic blacks and non-Hispanic whites (hereafter blacks a...

Do you wish to develop a MSCA proposal on pandemic studies with us at OsloMet? Please apply by January 31, 2021 or forward to relevant candidates

Background The objective was to document whether and to what extent there was an association between socioeconomic status (SES) and disease outcomes in the last five influenza pandemics. Methods/Principle Findings The review included studies published in English, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish. Records were identified through systematic literature...

Invited editorial

People with disabilities are often at increased risk during infectious disease pandemics, due to complex biological and social factors. Synergistic biological interactions can lead to severe complications or reduced vaccine efficacy, while people with disabilities also tend to have lower access to health care, higher rates of poverty, might be inst...

While attention to research integrity has been growing over the past decades, the processes of signalling and denouncing cases of research misconduct remain largely unstudied. In this article, we develop a theoretically and empirically informed understanding of the causes and consequences of reporting research misconduct in terms of power relations...

We hereby invite top-class researchers of any nationality, at any stage in their career after having obtained a PhD degree, for the study of social determinants or consequences of the 1918-20 “Spanish flu” pandemic or other historical influenza pandemics to apply for a EU-funded Marie Skłodowska Curie Action Individual Fellowship (MSCA-IF-2020) to...

During epidemics, the poorest part of the population usually suffers the most. Alfred Crosby noted that the norm changed during the 1918 influenza pandemic in the US: The black population (which were expected to have higher influenza morbidity and mortality) had lower morbidity and mortality than the white population during the autumn of 1918. Cros...

Tuberculosis (TB) mortality declined after the 1918 pandemic, suggesting that influenza killed those who would have died from TB. Few studies have analyzed TB as a direct risk factor for 1918 influenza morbidity and mortality by age and sex. We study the impacts of TB on influenza-like illness (% of population sick) and case fatality (% of cases dy...

We hereby invite top-class researchers of any nationality, at any stage in their career after having obtained a PhD degree, for the study of social determinants or consequences of the 1918-20 “Spanish flu” pandemic or other historical influenza pandemics to apply for a EU-funded Marie Skłodowska Curie Action Individual Fellowship (MSCA-IF-2019) to...

Background: Pandemic mortality rates in 1918 and in 2009 were highest among those with the lowest socioeconomic status (SES). Despite this, low SES groups are not included in the list of groups prioritized for pandemic vaccination, and the ambition to reduce social inequality in health does not feature in international and national pandemic prepare...

Denne rapporten presenterer resultater fra en sosiokulturell stedsanalyse fra Furuset gjennomført høsten 2019. Analysen inngår i bydelens programplan for Groruddalsatsingens delprogram nærmiljø for 2019 og vil bli lagt til grunn for oppdragsgivers innspill for et eventuelt områdeløft i 2020. Stedsanalysen har søkelys på Utviklingstrekk når det gjel...

Verdens hittil verste influensaepidemi, spanskesyken, er 100 år i 2018. Spanskesyken var en verdensomspennende influensaepidemi, en pandemi, som til tross for navnet ikke startet i Spania. Den spredte seg i 3-4 bølger, smittet minst en tredjedel av verdens befolkning og tok livet av minst 50 millioner mennesker, de fleste i løpet av noen få høstmån...

While a substantive literature has emerged on the prevalence, causes, and consequences of scientific misconduct, little is known about the organisational perspective in cases of (alleged) misconduct. We address this knowledge gap by employing a comparative case study approach to describe and assess the handling of four cases of alleged misconduct b...

This paper illuminates short-term birth sequelae of the influenza pandemic of 1918–20 in the USA using monthly data on births and all-cause deaths for 19 US states in conjunction with data on maternal deaths, stillbirths, and premature births. The data on births and all-cause deaths are adjusted for seasonal and trend effects, and the residual comp...

Purpose: Employability has been suggested as an alternative to job security in response to more flexible work arrangements, arguing that the important question for employees is no longer the security of their current job, but their employment security in the labour market. The purpose of this paper is to test two core assumptions of this argument:...

Previous research suggests Hispanic vaccination rates for H1N1 were similar to non-Hispanic whites. These previous estimates do not take into account nativity status. Using the 2010 National Health Interview Survey, we estimate adult H1N1 vaccination rates for non-Hispanic whites (n = 8780), U.S.-born Hispanics (n = 1142), and foreign-born Hispanic...

Workshop to mark the centenary of the 1918 influenza pandemic.

I dette kapittelet ser vi nærmere på hvilke konsekvenser ubearbeidede konflikter på individnivå kan gi på organisasjonsnivå. Vi skal beskrive en avgrenset case som er hentet fra en større norsk frivillig organisasjon, og vise hvordan konflikter som starter som interessemotsetninger og delvis som verdikonflikter, utvikler seg til å bli varme persono...

OsloMet-Oslo Metropolitan University (former HiOA) is Norway's third largest university, with more than 20,000 students and over 2000 employees. We conduct research in areas that are important for welfare and value creation, for instance health, education, social sciences, technology and design. OsloMet has an academic stimulating environment with...

This article investigates how educational level, job-related skills and employers’ support for competence development jointly determine Norwegian employees’ expectations of maintaining employment and career advancement. The data were collected in 2010 and 2013, and they comprise a representative sample of Norwegian employees. In contrast to previou...

Background: Whether morbidity from the 1918-19 influenza pandemic discriminated by socioeconomic status has remained a subject of debate for 100 years. In lack of data to study this issue recent literature have hypothesized that morbidity was “socially neutral”. Objectives: To study the associations between Influenza like illness (ILI) and socio...

Background: Children between the ages of 5 and 14 appear to have a lower risk of dying than both younger and older individuals. Objective: We looked for possible factors influencing the mortality rates of school-age children in Norway during the German occupation from 1940 to 1945, i.e., at a time of poverty and moderate food shortage – and befor...

Reducing social inequality in health is at the core of international health work, but does not form part of the discussionon international preparedness plans for pandemic influenza. This is surprising given that influenza pandemic mortality rates are highest among those with the lowest socioeconomic status. This is not conducive to achieving the in...

«Forsøk med NAV-veileder i videregående skole» er et samarbeidsprosjekt mellom Arbeids- og velferdsdirektoratet og Utdanningsdirektoratet. Forsøket startet i 2013 i tre fylker og ble deretter trinnvis utvidet fram til 2015, slik at det nå finnes pilotprosjekter i samtlige fylker. Forsøket går ut på at lokale NAV-kontorer og videregående skoler sama...

Previous studies have shown that direct involvement in workplace conflicts may have a significant impact on individual well-being. We used survey and interview data from a large nongovernmental organization (NGO) to analyze both the relationships between direct and indirect involvement in workplace conflicts and individual and organizational well-b...

Background. Reanalysis of influenza survey data from 1918 to 1919 was done to obtain new insights into the geographic and host factors responsible for the various waves. Methods. We analyzed the age- and sex-specific influenza morbidity, fatality, and mortality for the city of Baltimore and smaller towns and rural areas of Maryland and the city of...

The article synthesizes the literature on union commitment and union renewal through employing the concept of union apathy. This is done with a view to analyse the association between union strategies and union apathy, and the association between apathy and willingness to become a union delegate in Norway. To this end, the authors have run multivar...

I den senere tid har unge mottakere av stønad ved tiltaksdeltakelse og deres tilpasning til arbeid og utdanning vært et politisk aktuelt tema. På den ene siden har det blitt hevdet at stønaden bidrar til at unge trekkes ut av ordinære utdanningsløp i videregående skole for å delta i arbeidsrettede tiltak med tiltakspenger. På den andre siden kan de...

I forbindelse med et partssammensatt arbeid om livsfasepolitikk for flygeledere var det ønske om at dødelighet og dødsårsaker undersøkes. Partene i samarbeidet er Avinor som arbeidsgiver og Norsk Flygelederforening (NFF) som representant for de ansatte. Hypotesen som skulle testes var at flygeledere har signifikant høyere dødelighet enn sammenliknb...

Forsøket ”Kjerneoppgaver i NAV-kontor, avklaring og oppfølging” er bestilt av Arbeidsdepartementet og er formulert slik: ”Det skal i 2012 iverksettes et forsøk hvor Arbeids- og velferdsetaten i større grad gjennomfører avklarings- og oppfølgingstjenester i egen regi som alternativ til kjøp av slike tjenester i form av tiltak fra eksterne leverandør...

It is a well-known fact that workplace restructuring has undesirable effects on the psychosocial work environment, health, and sick leave, but no attention has been given to the health effects of work environments characterized by restructuring, a multicultural staff, and a strong socioeconomic occupational hierarchy. In this casestudy, we examine...

Forsøket ”Kjerneoppgaver i NAV–kontor, avklaring og oppfølging” er bestilt av Arbeidsdepartementet og formulert slik: ”Det skal i 2012 iverksettes et forsøk hvor Arbeids- og velferdsetaten i større grad gjennomfører avklarings- og oppfølgingstjenester i egen regi som alternativ til kjøp av slike tjenester i form av tiltak fra eksterne leverandører....

Having had influenza can reduce the risk of serious illness from infection by a different strain of influenza virus. Health personnel and healthy employees who are vaccinated regularly, in part to protect vulnerable patients and elderly people, may themselves be susceptible to a serious course of influenza illness

Analyses of mortality in Alaska and Labrador during the 1918 influenza pandemic indicate that influenza itself was only one of several factors influencing mortality in different communities. We discuss the added impact of exposure to influenza prior to the major waves of the pandemic in 1918 and cocirculation of other acute infectious diseases, inc...

This study uses a Norwegian nationally representative survey to examine whether cohabitants exhibit lower levels of psychological well-being than their married counterparts in a context where cohabitation is claimed to be largely indistinguishable from marriage. Six indicators of mental health are considered, and all adult ages and marital statuses...

Bakgrunn: Formålet med denne rapporten har vært todelt. For det første ønsket vi å kartlegge helsepersonells tilgang til informasjon om vaksiner og ulike aspekter ved vaksinasjon, hvilke informasjonskilder de bruker og hva de eventuelt savner av informasjon. For det andre ønsket vi å undersøke helsepersonells holdninger til vaksiner og barnevaksina...

There is ongoing debate whether previous vaccine-induced immunity against seasonal flu may provide some protection against pandemic A(H1N1) flu (1,2). Linked to this question is the issue how fast clinical protection may be attained with the new vaccines against pandemic flu. Textbook knowledge is that serum antibody levels peak 2-4 weeks after vac...

The history of influenza spans 2500 years from Egypt and Ancient Greece to the present. However, there is little evidence of influenza epidemics in the historical literature before the period from 1173 to 1387, thus the first generally agreed pandemic occurred in 1580. This article reviews the history of the naming of influenza and the discovery of...