Neonatal Mortality and Temperature in Two Northern Swedish Rural Parishes, 1860–1899—The Significance of Ethnicity and Gender

Lena Karlsson, Erling H. Lundevaller and Barbara Schumann
Additional contact information
Lena Karlsson: Centre for Demographic and Ageing Research (CEDAR), Umeå University, 901 87 Umeå, Sweden
Erling H. Lundevaller: Centre for Demographic and Ageing Research (CEDAR), Umeå University, 901 87 Umeå, Sweden
Barbara Schumann: Centre for Demographic and Ageing Research (CEDAR), Umeå University, 901 87 Umeå, Sweden

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 4, 1-15

Abstract: The aim of this study was to analyze the association between season of birth and daily temperature for neonatal mortality in two Swedish rural parishes between 1860 and 1899. Further, we aimed to study whether the association varied according to ethnicity (indigenous Sami reindeer herders and non-Sami settlers) and gender. The source material for this study comprised digitized parish records from the Demographic Data Base, Umeå University, combined with local weather data provided by the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute. Using a time event-history approach, we investigated the association between daily temperature (at birth and up to 28 days after birth) and the risk of neonatal death during the coldest months (November through March). The results showed that Sami neonatal mortality was highest during winter and that the Sami neonatal mortality risk decreased with higher temperatures on the day of birth. Male neonatal risk decreased with higher temperatures during the days following birth, while no effect of temperature was observed among female neonates. We conclude that weather vulnerability differed between genders and between the indigenous and non-indigenous populations.

Keywords: neonatal mortality; temperature; seasonality; indigenous population; gender; Sweden (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/4/1216/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/4/1216/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:4:p:1216-:d:320389

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().