Special Co-Vid 19 responses have been targeted to the elderly (of whatever age cut-off a politician designates) on the basis that age, itself, constitutes and a unique vulnerability to the disease. This Essay challenges that assumption on the basis of newer epidemiological evidence which I...

Many papers have been written about people's loss of life satisfaction during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, but not much has been said about their resilience after the first shock had passed. Were people able to return, at least in part, to their original level of life...

Many papers have been written about people's loss of life satisfaction during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, but not much has been said about their resilience after the first shock had passed. Were people able to return, at least in part, to their original level of life...

Public health experts have been predicting imminent threat of pandemic influenza. The latest US preparedness plans use the single statistic of case-fatality as the basis to evaluate any new threats. On this basis, Avian flu (H5N1) has been declared the single pandemic threat of concern, such...

Epidemics invite “pariah-tization.” By this, I mean the process of stigmatizing one marginalized and impotent segment of society as being the group most vulnerable to the disease at hand- without reliable scientific basis. Doing so allows those in power, the young, the rich, the...

In the midst of the current COVID-19 pandemic, the mortality risk being presented by both the media and some public health information providers is often misleading and so increasing the risk of suboptimal policy decisions and lower than desired voluntary compliance rates. We make the following...

Using data from the COVID-19 questionnaire of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), we investigate the time patterns of precautionary health behaviours of individuals aged 50 and above during the summer of 2020, an easing phase of the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe. We also...

In low-income settings, women are vulnerable to the psychological distress caused by the social and economic impact of large-scale shocks (e.g., pandemics, natural disasters, political). This paper evaluates a randomized over-the-phone counseling intervention aimed at mitigating the mental...