Ongoing Research on Past Pandemics

Since 2013, Historical Epidemiology has become an integral part of the research portfolio of the Anthropometrics and Historical Epidemiology Group. In this line of research, historical data is analysed with modern epidemiological methods and put in context to learn from the past for the present and future challenges. Here, we summarise our research activities on past pandemics in Switzerland. 

The current COVID-19 outbreak illustrates that the emergence of viral pandemics continues to be an immense challenge for public health and societies as a whole. Health policy makers would benefit from historical experience to increase risk awareness and inform decision making. However, valuable experiences from the past are not sufficiently accessible for researchers, policy makers, teachers, and the interested public. We aim to change that by digitising and thus making accessible archival data, and by extract the lessons to be learned from these data.

At the moment, we work on the following funded projects:

1. Digitizing epidemiological data of the ‘Russian flu’ 1890 (funded by SWF UZH)

There is still no recent epidemiological study on the "Russian flu" of 1890 in Switzerland. There is a unique but hitherto hardly used source of data on the "Russian flu" in Switzerland (Schmid F, 1895). In this project, we digitise and transform this unique data source for the first time into a machine-readable data set that can later be analysed using modern methods.

2. Vsualising the spatial-temporal spread of the 1918/1919 Bern outbreak (funded by DSI UZH)

In 2020, together with Dr. Oliver Grübner, we were granted a small Kick start money grant from the Digital Society Initiative at the University of Zurich (DSI, Challenge Area Health) to realise a first draft of an interactive online data visualisation of the Bern 1918/1919 data  as a R Shiny application. 

3. Quantifying pandemic spread in Switzerland 1890, 1918 & 1957 (funded by UZH UniGE Cofunds)

In collaboration with Prof. Olivia Keiser we want to advance the state of quantitative knowledge on past influenza pandemics in Switzerland. Our main hypothesis is that the patterns of pandemic spread, its determinants, and effects of public health interventions are similar across pandemics. The aim of our project is to reconstruct the temporal and regional spread of the 1890, 1918 and 1957 pandemic outbreaks in Switzerland based on incidence and mortality data. Our project is also intended to digitise and make previously unavailable archive material accessible.

4. Bringing together outbreak data and pandemic narratives in newspapers – a pilot study in the canton of Bern, 1918/1919 (funded by DSI UZH)

The spread of a pandemic and the narratives about an ongoing pandemic are not independent from each other. In this pilot project in collaboration with PD Dr. Gerold Schneider, we are bringing together outbreak data and text information from newspapers (reconstructed by text mining methods) quantitatively for the first time using the example of 1918.

5. Implementation of the data & visualization hub LEAD – LEarning from the pAst: Digitized past pandemics in Switzerland (funded by DIZH)

History offers scenarios from past pandemics. In CH, these past experiences have been too little researched, they are not present. We currently digitize large amounts of historical data. From Spring 2022, we aim to go the “last mile” to a publicly accessible data & interactive visualization hub, telling selected data stories. Collaboration with Prof. Dr. Wibke Weber (ZHAW) et al.

• Zwahlen, Marcel; Staub, Kaspar (2022). What would have happened if we would not have had the COVID vaccination? Swiss Medical Weekly:online.

• Staub, Kaspar; Floris, Joel; Rühli, Frank (2022). Lernen aus vergangenen Krisen - Das Beispiel der Influenza-Pandemie 1918 in der Schweizer Armee. Swiss Review of Military and Disaster Medicine (SRMDM), 99(1):619-1428.

• Staub, Kaspar; Panczak, Radoslaw; Matthes, Katarina; Floris, Joël; Berlin, Claudia; Junker, Christoph; Weitkunat, Rolf; Mamelund, Svenn-Erik; Zwahlen, Marcel; Riou, Julien (2022). Pandemic excess mortality in Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 was at its highest since 1918. Annals of Internal Medicine, published online 1.2.2022.

• Floris, Joël; Kaiser, Laurent; Mayr, Harald; Staub, Kaspar; Woitek Ulrich (2021): Investigating survivorship bias: the case of the 1918 flu pandemic. Applied Economics Letters; DOI: 10.1080/13504851.2021.1971614.

• Staub, Kaspar (2021): If immunisation is too low, dropping temperatures in fall 2021 may lead to epidemic resurgence – as in 1918, 1957 and 2020. Swiss Med Wkly. 2021;151:w30014.

• Staub, Kaspar; Panczak, Radoslaw; Matthes, Katarina L; Floris, Joel; Berlin, Claudia; Junker, Christoph; Weitkunat, Rolf; Mamelund, Svenn-Erik; Egger, Matthias; Zwahlen, Marcel; Riou, Julien (2021): Pandemic excess mortality in Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 was at its highest since 1918. medRxiv 2021.08.12.21261825.

• Staub, Kaspar (2021): Looking Back to the Future? Possible Pandemic Scenarios from the Past with Relevance for Autumn/winter 2021, and the Years Ahead. OSF Preprints. July 7. osf.io/bakqr.

• Staub, Kaspar; Jüni, Peter; Urner, Martin; Matthes, Katarina; Leuch, Corina; Gemperle, Gina; Bender, Nicole; Fabrikant, Sara; Puhan, Milo; Rühli, Frank; Gruebner, Oliver; Floris, Joël (2021): Public health interventions, epidemic growth, and regional variation of the 1918 Spanish flu outbreak in a Swiss canton and its greater regions. Annals of Internal Medicine, M20-6231

• Staub, Kaspar; Rühli, Frank; Floris, Joël (2020): The “Pandemic Gap” in Switzerland across the 20th century and the necessity of increased science communication of past pandemic experiences. Swiss Medical Weekly, 12.11.2020

• Staub, Kaspar; Floris, Joël (2020): Down memory lane: Unprecedented strong public and scientific interest in the “Spanish flu” 1918/1919 during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Influenza and other respiratory viruses, published online 18.9.2020

• Floris, Joël; Kaiser, Laurent; Mayr, Harald; Staub, Kaspar; Woitek, Ulrich (2019). Survival of the weakest? Culling evidence from the 1918 flu pandemic. Working paper series / Department of Economics 316, University of Zurich.