ArticleEpidemiology and infection2017
Rapid mortality transition of Pacific Islands in the 19th century.
Article in Epidemiology and infection, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 27 citations in OpenAlex.
- Breastfeeding and the Risk of Infant Illness in Asia: A Review.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2019Pooled it
- Regional autozygosity association with albumin-to-creatinine ratio reveals a novel FTO region in an Indigenous Australian population.European journal of human genetics : EJHG · 2025Article
- Extreme mortality during a historical measles outbreak on Rotuma is consistent with measles immunosuppression.Epidemiology and infection · 2024Article
- The immunogenetic impact of European colonization in the Americas.Frontiers in genetics · 2022Review
- Epidemiological Isolation May Explain Differences in Historical Respiratory Infectious Disease Mortality.The American journal of tropical medicine and hygiene · 2021Article
- The effect of the definition of 'pandemic' on quantitative assessments of infectious disease outbreak risk.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Epidemiological Isolation as an Infection Mortality Risk Factor in U.S. Soldiers from Late Nineteenth to Early Twentieth Centuries.The American journal of tropical medicine and hygiene · 2019Article
- Increased frequency of travel in the presence of cross-immunity may act to decrease the chance of a global pandemic.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2019Article
- Fluctuating and Geographically Specific Selection Characterize Rapid Evolution of the HumanFrontiers in immunology · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
The depopulation of Pacific islands during the 16th to 19th centuries is a striking example of historical mass mortality due to infectious disease. Pacific Island populations have not been subject to such cataclysmic infectious disease mortality since. Here we explore the processes which could have given rise to this shift in infectious disease mortality patterns. We show, using mathematical models, that the population dynamics exhibited by Pacific Island populations are unlikely to be the result of Darwinian evolution. We propose that extreme mortality during first-contact epidemics is a function of epidemiological isolation, not a lack of previous selection. If, as pathogens become established in populations, extreme mortality is rapidly suppressed by herd immunity, Pacific Island population mortality patterns can be explained with no need to invoke genetic change. We discuss the mechanisms by which this could occur, including (i) a link between the proportion of the population transmitting infectious agents and case-fatality rates, and (ii) the course of infection with pathogens such as measles and smallpox being more severe in adults than in children. Overall, we consider the present-day risk of mass mortality from newly emerging infectious diseases is unlikely to be greater on Pacific islands than in other geographical areas.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.