Overcrowding and Mortality During the Influenza Pandemic of 1918.
case_control · Level III
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 26959269.
- Also identified by DOI 10.2105/AJPH.2015.303018 and PMC identifier 4816079.
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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 five-fold. Calculations made with Brewer's data show that the overall relationship between overcrowding and severe flu was highly significant (P < .001). Brewer's findings suggest that man-made conditions increased the severity of the pandemic flu illness.
Medical subject headings
- Influenza, Human
- Pandemics