Unequal lands: Soil type, nutrition, and child mortality in southern Sweden, 1850-1914

Abstract

BACKGROUNDChild mortality differed greatly within rural regions in Europe before and during the mortality transition. Little is known about the role of nutrition in such geographic differences, and about the factors affecting the nutritional status and hence the disease outcomes.

Infant mortality in mid‐19th century Amsterdam: Religion, social class, and space

“…Findings of Hedefalk, Pantazatou, Quaranta, and Harrie (), Hedefalk, Quaranta, and Bengtsson (), and Olson (), for instance, show that the choice of geographical level is important for demographic analyses using historical individual‐level data. Hedefalk, Pantazatou, et al () and Hedefalk, Quaranta, et al () combine micro‐level geographical factors, such as soil conditions, with individual‐level historical demographic data in a case study of rural parishes in Sweden. Studies analysing micro‐level geographic factors for urban environments have also become more common; see, for example, Olson () and Thornton and Olson () for Montreal, and Ekamper () for the Dutch town of Leeuwarden.…”

Intergenerational transmission of longevity is not affected by other familial factors: Evidence from 16,905 Dutch families from Zeeland, 1812-1962

“…In the literature, the enduring effects of high sibling infant mortality on individual survival are welldocumented for Southern Sweden (Bengtsson & Lindström, 2000, 2003Quaranta, 2013) and have recently been replicated for the Netherlands and Utah (Van Dijk, Janssens & Smith, 2018). High sibling infant mortality indicates that there might be something going structurally 'wrong' in these families, for example genetic defects, extremely unhealthy environments, or behavior (Van den Boomen & Ekamper, 2015;Hedefalk, Quaranta & Bengtsson, 2017;Walhout, 2019). However, in our study the association between infant mortality in the sibship and offspring survival was insignificant after controlling for the size of the dataset, indicating that infant mortality in the sibship had only a minor impact on individual chances to become long-lived.…”

Geographic clustering of longevity in a Dutch province, 1812-1962: How stable, behavior-associated environmental characteristics explain the local clustering of longevity

“…Differences in survival by soil type have been explained by the disease climate, access to clean drinking water, and agricultural traditions Hofstee, 1981). The first two explanations hypothesize that differences between porous sandy soils and waterlogged clay soils are in fact a juxtaposition between drylands and wetlands (Hedefalk, Quaranta & Bengtsson, 2017;Munro et al, 1997). The wetlands were an excellent breeding ground for pathogens.…”

“…Soil type has been associated with access to clean drinking water and disease environments, which increase exposure to infectious diseases. Moreover, farm sizes and agricultural practices differed considerably by soil type, affecting access to food and local diets Hedefalk, Quaranta & Bengtsson, 2017;Hofstee, 1981;van den Boomen & Ekamper, 2015;van den Boomen & Rotering, 2018;Wolleswinkel-van den Bosch et al, 2001). Finally, urbanization is thought to increase mortality, as possible beneficial effects of available services were negated by the negative effects of overcrowding, cottage industry, and slumming (see e.g.…”