NBER Center for Aging and Health Research

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OTHER PROJECT INFORMATION – Project Summary/Abstract Lessons for COVID-19 from the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 to 1920 There is currently great concern about the health consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. One issue is how non-pharmaceutical public-health interventions (NPIs) impact the spread of the disease and, hence, fatality rates. A second is the inequality in infection rates and deaths across people with different socioeconomic characteristics. The goal of this project is to draw lessons for today from the Great Influenza Pandemic, which began in spring 1918, peaked during a second wave in late 1918 and early 1919, persisted through 1920, and cumulatively killed 40 million people worldwide. Using a combination of cross-city and cross-national analyses, the project will study how disease outcomes from the Great Influenza Pandemic relate to variations in population demographics and patterns of NPI use. The project will assess how disease outcomes relate to the types and durations of non-pharmaceutical public-health interventions implemented across geographic locations and over time. It will characterize the NPIs that were adopted during the Great Influenza Pandemic in terms of type, intensity, and duration of application. Among the NPIs to be considered are school closings, prohibitions of public gatherings, and quarantine/isolation. The project will analyze variations in infections, deaths, population demographics, and NPI use across at least 45 large US cities, 48 countries, and cities in Spain and England, where high-frequency data are available on flu-related excess mortality. The project will be conducted as a supplement to grant P30-AG012810, the NBER Center for Aging and Health Research.