Previous research has shown that the Black Death targeted older adults and individuals who had been previously exposed to physiological stressors. This project investigates whether this selectivity of the Black Death, combined with post-epidemic rising standards of living, led to significant improvements in patterns of skeletal stress markers, and by inference in health, among survivors and the...

Between Famine and Death: England on the Eve of the Black Death—Evidence from Paleoepidemiology and Manorial Accounts The fourteenth-century Black Death was one of the most devastating epidemics in human history. Lasting only a few years, it killed an estimated 30 to 50 percent of affected populations. In England, the population fell from approximately 4.8 to 2.6 million between 1348 and 1351. ...

Was the mortality associated with the deadliest known epidemic in human history, the Black Death of 1347-1351, selective with respect to preexisting health conditions ("frailty")? Many researchers have assumed that the Black Death was so virulent, and the European population so immunologically naïve, that the epidemic killed indiscriminately, irrespective of age, sex, or frailty. If this were t...

KEY FINDINGS Data from the National Vital Statistics System, Mortality In 2010, life expectancy for the black population was 3.8 years lower than that of the white population. This difference was due to higher death rates for the black population for heart disease, cancer, homicide, diabetes, and perinatal conditions. Life expectancy for black males was 4.7 years lower than that of white males....

It was an unprecedented disaster. When the Black Death swept west and northwards through Europe in the dark days of 1347–1351, it brought with it unparalleled suffering and death. With the demographic collapse came social, psychological and economic shock as the survivors struggled to comprehend the enormity of what had befallen. Yet it was also a pivotal point in Western history, maintains Dav...