Written in an engaging and jargon-free style by a team of
international and interdisciplinary experts, Modern
Environments and Human Health demonstrates by example how
methods, theoretical approaches, and data from a wide range of
disciplines can be used to resolve longstanding questions about the
second epidemiological transition. The first book to address the
subject from a multi-regional, comparative, and interdisciplinary
perspective, Modern Environments and Human
Health is a valuable resource for students and academics
in biological anthropology, economics, history, public health,
demography, and epidemiology.

Modern Environments and Human Health: Revisiting the Second Epidemiologic Transition demonstrates by example how methods, theoretical approaches, and data from a wide range of disciplines can be used to resolve longstanding questions about the second epidemiologic transition - the shift from a high burden of epidemic, infectious illness to greater morbidity and mortality from chronic and degenerative diseases.

Understanding how, why, and when the transition occurred across different regions and communities can provide critical insight into the relationships between economic growth, environmental quality and change, and human health. This comprehensive book brings together skeletal, archaeological, biodemographic, geochemical, environmental, epidemiological, cemetery, social history, and parasitological data to shed light on this important epidemiologic transition, and to inform current debates on the best ways to allocate public health funding in developed and developing countries.

The first book to address the second epidemiologic transition from a multi-regional, comparative, and interdisciplinary perspective, Modern Environments and Human Health will be a valuable resource for students and academics in biological anthropology, economics, history, public health, demography, and epidemiology.

Key features include:

• discusses the second epidemiologic transition from a multi-regional, comparative, and interdisciplinary perspective

• brings together skeletal, archaeological, biodemographic, geochemical, environmental, epidemiological, cemetery, social history, and parasitological data

• written in an engaging and jargon-free style by a team of international and interdisciplinary experts

• provides significant detail on data, methods and findings for potential replication

Contributors vii

Acknowledgments ix

1 Introduction: Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Second Epidemiologic Transition 1
Molly K. Zuckerman

Part 1 Causes of the Second Epidemiologic Transition

2 Infectious Disease in Philadelphia, 16901807: An Ecological Perspective 17
Gilda M. Anroman

3 Modeling the Second Epidemiologic Transition in London: Patterns of Mortality and Frailty during Industrialization 35
Sharon N. DeWitte

4 The Wider Background of the Second Transition in Europe: Information from Skeletal Material 55
Nikola Koepke

5 The Epidemiological Transition in Practice: Consumption, Phthisis, and TB in the 19th Century 81
Jeffrey K. Beemer

Part 2 Epidemic Infectious Disease and the Second Epidemiologic Transition

6 Agent-Based Modeling and the Second Epidemiologic Transition 105
Carolyn Orbann, Jessica Dimka, Erin Miller and Lisa Sattenspiel

7 Does Exposure to Influenza Very Early in Life Affect Mortality Risk during a Subsequent Outbreak? The 1890 and 1918 Pandemics in Canada 123
Stacey Hallman and Alain Gagnon

Part 3 Regional and Temporal Variation in the Second Epidemiologic Transition

8 The Second Epidemiologic Transition in Western Poland 139
Alicja Budnik

9 The Timing of the Second Epidemiologic Transition in Small US Towns and Cities: Evidence from Local Cemeteries 163
Lisa Sattenspiel and Rebecca S. Lander

10 Industrialization and the Changing Mortality Environment in an English Community during the Industrial Revolution 179
Peter M. Kitson

Part 4 Marginalized and Underrepresented Communities in the Second Epidemiologic Transition

11 Short Women and Their Stagnating Growth: A Study of Biological Welfare and Inequality of Women in Postcolonial India 201
Aravinda Meera Guntupalli

12 Tracking the Second Epidemiologic Transition Using Bioarchaeological Data on Infant Morbidity and Mortality 225
Megan A. Perry

13 The Biological Effects of Urbanization and In-Migration on 19th-Century-Born African Americans and Euro-Americans of Low Socioeconomic Status: An Anthropological and Historical Approach 243
Carlina de la Cova

Part 5 The Environment and the Second Epidemiologic Transition

14 Reassessing the Good and Bad of Modern Environments: Developing a More Comprehensive Approach to Health Trend Assessment 267
Lawrence M. Schell

15 Childhood Lead Exposure in the British Isles during the Industrial Revolution 279
Andrew Millard, Janet Montgomery, Mark Trickett, Julia Beaumont, Jane Evans, and Simon Chenery

16 The Hygiene Hypothesis and the Second Epidemiologic Transition 301
Molly K. Zuckerman and George J. Armelagos

17 Comparative Parasitological Perspectives on Epidemiologic Transitions: The Americas and Europe 321
Karl J. Reinhard and Elisa Pucu de Araújo

Part 6 Epilogue

18 The Second Epidemiologic Transition, Adaptation, and the Evolutionary Paradigm 339
George J. Armelagos

19 The Second Epidemiologic Transition from an Epidemiologist's Perspective 353
Nancy L. Fleischer and Robert E. McKeown

20 Methodological Perspectives on the Second Epidemiologic Transition: Current and Future Research 369
Richard H. Steckel

21 The Current State of Knowledge on the Industrial Epidemiologic Transition: Where Do We Go from Here? 377
Timothy B. Gage

Index 393