PD Dr. Kaspar Staub

Kaspar Staub is an expert in history, epidemiology, and evolutionary medicine. He obtained a PhD in economic, social, and environmental history from the University of Bern in 2010. Then he started working for the Institute for Evolutionary Medicine at the University of Zurich (UZH). Since 2014, he has lead the UZH’s research group Anthropometry and Historical Epidemiology.

Kaspar has published over 80 papers. He is a faculty member of the Swiss School of Public Health, a member of the new Center for Crisis Competence of the UZH, and a lecturer at the Institute of History at the University of Bern, among others. His research focusses on the interactions between human health and the changing environment over the last 200 years. His approach is quantitative, interdisciplinary, and collaborative. Kaspar also focuses on the digitization of archival data and science communication. His current research involves neonatal and maternal health, past and present pandemics, geovisualizations of nineteenth century cholera outbreaks, and the decline of childhood diseases in the 20th century.

RCC Research Project: Multi-Dimensional and Interdisciplinary Approaches to past Pandemics in German-Speaking Europe

Selected Publications:

• with Radoslaw Panczak, Katarina L. Matthes, Joël Floris, Claudia Berlin, Christoph Junker, Rolf Weitkunat, Svenn-Erik Mamelund, Marcel Zwahlen, and Julien Riou, “Historically High Excess Mortality During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Switzerland, Sweden, and Spain.” Annals of Internal Medicine (April 2022). https://doi.org/10.7326/M21-3824.
• with Joël Floris, Laurent Kaiser, Harald Mayr, and Ulrich Woitek, “Investigating Survivorship Bias: The Case of the 1918 Flu Pandemic.” Applied Economics Letters 29, no. 21: 2047–2052 (September 2021). https://doi.org/10.1080/13504851.2021.1971614.
• “If Immunisation Is Too Low, Dropping Temperatures in Fall 2021 May Lead To Epidemic Resurgence— As in 1918, 1957, and 2020.” Swiss Medical Weekly 151: w30014 (August 2021). https://doi.org/10.4414/smw.2021.w30014.
• with Peter Jüni, Martin Urner, Latarina L. Matthes, Corina Leuch, Gina Gemperle, Nicole Bender, Sara I. Fabrikant, Milo Puhan, Frank Rühli, Oliver Gruebner, and Joël Floris, “Public Health Interventions, Epidemic Growth, and Regional Variation of the 1918 Influenza Pandemic Outbreak in a Swiss Canton and Its Greater Regions.” Annals of Internal Medicine 174, no.4 (April 2021): 533–539. https://doi.org/10.7326/M20-6231.
• with Joël Floris, “Down Memory Lane: Unprecedented Strong Public and Scientific Interest in the ‘Spanish Flu’ 1918/1919 during the COVID-19 Pandemic.” Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses 15, no. 2 (September 2020). https://doi.org/10.1111/irv.12806.
• with Joël Floris, “Water, Sanitation and Mortality in Swiss Towns in the Context of Urban Renewal in the Late Nineteenth Century.” The History of the Family 24, no.2: 249–276 (April 2019). https://doi.org/10.1080/1081602X.2019.1598460.