​In addition to experimental work on virulence, its evolution and effects on hosts, we also study real world epidemics using historical dataset covering several hundred towns across Finland. This large dataset (>2M death cases) that is based on church book records allows following real epidemics of dozens of diseases during 1800's - era prior to health care.


This work has been funded by Finnish Cultural Foundation and is done in close collaboration with historian Miikka Voutilainen and Human Life History Group (Virpi Lummaa and Michael Briga)