PRIVMORT Research Project, University of Cambridge

Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe, 2017

Eastern Europe underwent one of the most dramatic economic and demographic changes in recent history with skyrocketing mortality rates in some countries during the 1990s. The case of Hungary among the post-socialist transition countries is puzzling for several reasons. Although the Hungarian transition has often been characterized as smooth and successful, a look at the human dimension of the transformation reveals large costs and a slow improvement. Based on the analysis of 29 articles we provide a systematic review of the empirical evidence about the social determinants of mortality in post-socialist Hungary establishing a hierarchy of causes. Socio-economic position, mental health, social capital, alcohol consumption, stress and social integration are the most important explanatory variables that received attention by the researchers. Although economic policies might have played a central role in the rise of mortality there is no empirical research on the political economy of health in Hungary. No critical analysis of post-socialism can be complete without assessing the human costs of economic transformation. Social scientists have much to learn from social epidemiologists who have designed robust methodologies and complex theoretical frameworks to analyse the political economic determinants of health.

Lancet, 2010

A summary of this peer-reviewed paper with an associated web-appendix is now published in the Lancet, 375(9712):372 and is available at: http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(10)60158-4/fulltext Please see the postscript below for further details.

BMC Public Health, 2016

Background: Previous research using routine data identified rapid mass privatisation as an important driver of mortality crisis following the collapse of Communism in Central and Eastern Europe. However, existing studies on the mortality crisis relying on individual level or routine data cannot assess both distal (societal) and proximal (individual) causes of mortality simultaneously. The aim of the PrivMort Project is to overcome these limitations and to investigate the role of societal factors (particularly rapid mass privatisation) and individual-level factors (e.g. alcohol consumption) in the mortality changes in post-communist countries.

Social Science & Medicine, 2012

Cross-national statistical analyses based on country-level panel data are increasingly popular in social epidemiology. To provide reliable results on the societal determinants of health, analysts must give very careful consideration to conceptual and methodological issues: aggregate (historical) data are typically compatible with multiple alternative stories of the data-generating process. Studies in this field which fail to relate their empirical approach to the true underlying data-generating process are likely to produce misleading results if, for example, they misspecify their models by failing to explore the statistical properties of the longitudinal aspect of their data or by ignoring endogeneity issues. We illustrate the importance of this extra need for care with reference to a recent debate on whether discussing the role of rapid mass privatisation can explain post-communist mortality fluctuations. We demonstrate that the finding that rapid mass privatisation was a "crucial determinant" of male mortality fluctuations in the post-communist world is rejected once better consideration is given to the way in which the data are generated.

International Journal of Public Health, 2008

Objectives: The aim of this paper is to present the Moscow Health Survey 2004, which was designed to examine health inequalities in Moscow. In particular we want to discuss social survey problems, such as non-response, in Moscow and Russia. Methods: Interviews, covering social and economic circumstances, health and social trust, of a stratified random sample of the greater Moscow population, aged 18+. Reasons for nonresponse were noted down with great care. Odds ratios (ORs) for self-rated health by gender and by six social dimensions were estimated separately for districts with low and high response rates. Bias due to non-response is discussed. Results and conclusions: About one in two (53.1 %) of approached individuals could not be interviewed, resulting in 1190 completed interviews. Non-response in most Russian surveys, but perhaps particularly in Moscow, is large, partly due to fear of strangers and distrust of authorities. ORs for poor health vary significantly by gender, occupational class, education and economic hardship. We find no significant differences in these ORs when comparing districts with low and high response rates. Non-response may be a problem when estimating prevalence rates or population means, but much less so when estimating odds ratios in multivariate analyses.

SAGE Research Methods Cases, 2020

An unprecedented mortality crisis befell the former socialist countries between 1989 and 1995, representing one of the most significant demographic shocks of the post-Second World War period. Academic research has identified economic transitions as a crucial factor behind the postsocialist mortality crisis. However, most previous studies relied on either country-level or individual-level data, which leaves the potential for modeling error, as they cannot assess both distal (economic) and proximal (individual) causes of mortality simultaneously. We aimed to overcome these limitations and investigate the role of economic transitions (rapid mass privatization, deindustrialization, and foreign investment liberalization) and individual-level factors (e.g., alcohol consumption) in the mortality crises in postsocialist countries. We identified towns with different privatization strategies and collected administrative data on 539 towns in Russia, 96 towns in Belarus and 52 towns in Hungary. In these towns, we identified the largest companies and collected data on their ownership structure. We also conducted large-scale surveys using a retrospective cohort study approach. Respondents provided information on themselves and their relatives, including socioeconomic characteristics, health behavior, as well as the vital status of their relatives. In total, we collected data on 268,600 subjects in the three countries. Using this information, we created a complex multilevel database linking towns’ industrial characteristics and individual health outcomes covering three decades from 1980 to 2010. We investigated how excess mortality of individuals is distributed across settlements with different privatization strategies. The results confirmed that economic change and alcohol were crucial determinants of mortality during the postsocialist transition.

2024

Programme of the conference session "Destruction, Burial or Just Fading Away. Roman Case Studies on the De-sacralisation of Religious Sites and Material Culture in Antiquity", 30 August 2024, Rome. The aim of this session is to explore what happened to religious sites when they (or a particular cult or part of a sanctuary) were de-sacralised, profaned and abandoned. Especially in Late Antiquity, many cult places were abandoned, but did they just fade away? Apart from the architectural remains, a particularly interesting question relates to the fate of the religious material culture, such as cult figurines and statues, altars, votive o erings, sacrificial instruments, and priestly garments. Some sites clearly show the deliberate deposition of such artefacts, such as the large metal deposition of carnices, a bronze horse and many more items at the La Tène sanctuary of Tintignac, or the deposition of Roman-period votive and ritual objects, for example from Bury St Edmunds, notably priestly regalia. Sometimes only a part of a sanctuary might be involved, for example when the cult of a particular god or goddess ceased, like Jupiter Dolichenus in the mid-third century CE: did people still consider his cult statues and altars to be 'sacred'? The aim is to investigate various sites from di erent periods to explore what happened to a cult and its material culture once the worship ceased. What is the meaning behind the depositions of religious items: burial or merely temporary storage? What rituals were involved in this process? It also raises the question of what alternative treatments we can identify, such as the destruction and recycling of de-sacralised artefacts. This session is less interested in the widely studied transformation of 'pagan' sites into Christian churches, but focuses on the afterlife of a religious place, cult and religious material culture.

Studies in Romanticism, 2011

L’Église dans la mondialisation L’apport des Communautés nouvelles Colloque de Rome

Éditions de l’Emmanuel