@oxforddemsci
Interdisciplinary research center based at the University of Oxford and Oxford Population Health - disrupting and realigning #demography. Funded by @leverhulme.bsky.social https://www.demography.ox.ac.uk/
👩🔬🤵♀️👩⚖️ For International Women’s Day @nuffieldcollege.bsky.social will host @melindacmills.bsky.social for a talk entitled "How to Be Brilliant Without Being Behaved".
More details:
www.demography.ox.ac.uk/news/melinda...
#IWD2026 #WomenInScience #Demography
Screenshot from Changing Populations newsletter which has an image showing a woman in bed looking distressed as she tries to sleep while the sun shines onto the bed, with the headline 'Night shift work and sleep'. Article intro text reads: Research by CG Co-Director Professor Melinda Mills MBE has found that night shift work is linked to shorter sleep duration among middle-aged and older adults, with women, parents, and less-educated workers facing the greatest impact. As part of her European Research Council (ERC) CHRONO and Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science (LCDS) work, the research co-authored by Professor Mills draws on data from 217,863 participants in the UK Biobank. Findings show that night shift workers, on average, sleep eight minutes less per night than non-shift workers. While seemingly modest, this reduction compounds over years of work and has profound health implications. The research identifies multiple moderating factors that shape how night shift work affects sleep:
🌃 “ #Sleep is often overlooked in discussions of work and health, yet it's a fundamental way #stress translates into disease," says @melindacmills.bsky.social from @oxforddemsci.bsky.social in the latest Changing Populations.
Read the full story in section 9: sway.cloud.microsoft/WzAYgcw05ELX...
Key Graph: estimated life expectancy deficit (relative to pre-covid trends) by country
You can find several authors on here:
@drjenndowd.bsky.social @jschoeley.com @polizzan.bsky.social @haohao-lei.bsky.social @ridhikashyap.bsky.social
and the preprint is here www.medrxiv.org/content/10.6...
Five years after the pandemic began, have countries returned to their pre-COVID life expectancy trajectories?
New research shows 31 of 34 high-income countries still have life expectancy deficits in 2024, suggesting lasting effects on population health.
www.demography.ox.ac.uk/news/new-lcd...
Bonus highlight of the talk? A curious little visitor! 🐞
Somehow a ladybug kept dropping by Melinda’s podium (stylized photo representation).
Surely an omen of good luck for all the future OFH research coming up.
Our Future Health is a new exciting biobank that has the potential to reach about 10% of the UK population.
Researchers at our centre are at the forefront of assessing how representative the data is and what population biases it might have.
more about OFH ourfuturehealth.org.uk
Yesterday @melindacmills.bsky.social delivered the Richard Doll Seminar🎓🎤 about the "Our Future Health" data.
She outlined the exciting prospects of large-scale health data and her analysis of representativeness of the biobank population to a packed room, full of interested questions.
"Temporary shock or lasting scar?"
By 2024 nearly all high-income countries remained below their pre-pandemic life expectancy trends. We identify four distinct mortality shock patterns since 2020. Full analysis in our preprint: www.medrxiv.org/content/10.6...
Breaking new grounds in demographic science:
Fresh research from
@mortenkthomsen.bsky.social, @andreatilstra.bsky.social and Jane Greve investigates mortality patterns in the intersex population, a group long absent from population health research.
www.demography.ox.ac.uk/news/new-wor...
📢🎓 Upcoming talk by @melindacmills.bsky.social
"Assessing Representativeness and Bias in Large Prospective Biobanks: Insights from Our Future Health"
📆March 3, 13:00
📍Richard Doll Building
learn about the latest OFH data release covering >1.9 million participants.
talks.ox.ac.uk/talks/id/e2a...
Important new contribution out in @pnas.org looks at what the collapse in funding for Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) that came from the USAID defunding means and how we can best move forward from here. Longer thread below 👇
An experimental approach to pandemic preparedness:
A new @nathealth.nature.com article introduces “Epigames” smartphone-based simulations that model pandemic outbreaks and behavioural responses in real time. 📱🦠
Read more:
www.demography.ox.ac.uk/news/oxford-...
There is also a video of Mary explaining her research that comes with the article! www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVsV...
Read about @mkroberts.bsky.social discuss her research on peoples' decisions about living kidney donation: closeness to the recipient and the belief it will extend their life are key motivators . 💙🧬
www.hcplive.com/view/donor-r...
New Python package for worlds biggest health dataset "Our Future Health" 🐍⚕️🖥️:
Phenofhy by @vincentjstraub.bsky.social supports workfklows from data extraction to profiling phenotypes pre-GWAS
Docs: studiovincentstraub.github.io/phenofhy/
Community: studiovincentstraub.github.io/phenofhy/sup...
NEW: Oxford researchers have found that higher temperatures can shift the sex ratio at birth.
Temperatures above 20°C are consistently linked to fewer boys being born across multiple regions - with implications for population health and gender balance.
Read more from @sociologyoxford.bsky.social ⬇️
addendum: I forgot to tag prize-winner Antonino Polizzi, you can find him under @polizzan.bsky.social
We were proud to celebrate these exceptional scholars.
As Jiani Yan said:
“I greatly appreciate the establishment of this prize in Julia's memory, as I remain inspired by her kindness, dedication, and passion for population health.”
We thank @leverhulme.ac.uk and @nuffieldcollege.bsky.social
🥈 Runner-Up: Antonino Polizzi 🥈
Recognised for his work:
“Why is life expectancy in England and Wales falling behind? A cause-of-death decomposition approach.”
Find it here:
osf.io/preprints/so...
🥈 Runner-Up: @jasminabdelghany.bsky.social 🥈
Recognised for her work (just published in PNAS):
“Temperature and Sex Ratios at Birth”
find it here: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
🌟 Joint First Prize Winner: Jiani Yan 🌟
Recognised for her work:
“Revisiting the social determinants of health with explainable AI: a cross-country perspective.”
find it here: academic.oup.com/aje/advance-...
🌟 Joint First Prize Winner: @edithdarin.bsky.social 🌟
Recognised for her work:
“Leveraging High-Frequency Digital Data to Analyze Forced Displacement Dynamics: A Case Study from the Gaza Strip.”
Edith builds tools to track population displacement in real time during crises .
Today we celebrate the winners of the Julia Mead Knox Prize, handed out in memory of a brilliant DPhil student at LCDS, whose passion for inclusive, justice-oriented demographic research continues to inspire us. 👉 demography.ox.ac.uk/news/winners-announced-julia-mead-knox-memorial-prize
How does extreme heat shape who is born — and where?
New study by @jasminabdelghany.bsky.social out in @pnas.org today links high temperatures to changes in sex ratios at birth in sub-Saharan Africa and India. 🔬📊
www.demography.ox.ac.uk/news/new-lcd...
We can confirm that we do indeed love having Jakub around!
It was great to welcome Dr. Alejandro Espinosa-Rada to LCDS this week for a fascinating seminar on how informal social groups shape identity through everyday interaction, networks, and shared contexts.
A stimulating discussion on how networks form in the younger generation followed! 📊
Two new research publications from LCDS researcher @mkroberts.bsky.social highlights persistent inequalities in kidney care: from treatment pathways after kidney failure to family decisions about living donation. 👩⚕️👨⚕️
🔗 www.demography.ox.ac.uk/news/new-res...
Two new studies deepen our understanding of the link between motherhood & labour market outcomes:
1) shows the link between motherhood penalties and broader gender inequality
2) explores how motherhood penalties are stratified
www.demography.ox.ac.uk/news/two-new...
