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Abstract
What is the health impact of catastrophic risks on survivors? We use a population exposed to severe famine conditions during infancy to document two opposing effects. The first: exposure leads to poor health into adulthood, a scarring effect. The second: survivors do not themselves suffer health consequences, a selection effect. Anthropometric evidence on over 21,000 subjects born before, during and after the Great Irish Famine (1845-52), among modern history’s most severe famines, suggests selection is strongest where mortality is highest. Individuals born in heavily-affected areas experienced no measurable stunted growth, while scarring was found among those born where excess mortality was low.
Original language | English |
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Place of Publication | medRxiv |
Publisher | Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Sep 2020 |
Publication series
Name | QUCEH Working Paper Series |
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Publisher | Queen's University Belfast |
No. | 2017-08 |
Keywords
- catastrophic risk
- famine
- fetal origins hypothesis
- anthropometrics
- economic history
- Ireland
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Projects
- 1 Active
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R8302MAE: What Can Prison Inmates Tell Us About Ireland in the Nineteenth Century?
01/08/2012 → …
Project: Research