Overcrowding and mortality during the influenza pandemic of 1918: Evidence from US Army Camp A. A. Humphreys, Virginia

C. Andrew Aligne

American Journal of Public Health, 2016, vol. 106, issue 4, 642-644

Abstract: The influenza pandemic of 1918 killed more than 50 million people. Why was 1918 such an outlier? I. W. Brewer, a US Army physician at Camp Humphreys, Virginia, during the First World War, investigated several factors suspected of increasing the risk of severe flu: length of service in the army, race, dirty dishes, flies, dust, crowding, and weather. Overcrowding stood out, increasing the risk of flu 10-fold and the risk of flu complicated with pneumonia fi ve-fold. Calculations made with Brewer's data show that the overall relationship between overcrowding and severe flu was highly significant (P

Keywords: crowding (area); history; human; Influenza, Human; male; mortality; pandemic; soldier; United States; war, Crowding; History, 20th Century; Humans; Influenza, Human; Male; Military Personnel; Pandemics; United States; World War I (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aph:ajpbhl:10.2105/ajph.2015.303018_7

DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.2015.303018

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