ArticleEvolution, medicine, and public health2021
Twinning during the pandemic: Evidence of selection
Article in Evolution, medicine, and public health, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
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Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 23 citations in OpenAlex.
- The decade of double-trouble: live birth and stillbirth sex ratio variation in Finland during the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia's attack on Ukraine.European journal of epidemiology · 2026Article
- Sex Ratio at Birth in Northern Ireland During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Comparison With Published Data From the Republic of Ireland, England and Wales.American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council · 2025Article
- Left Truncation in the Periviable Period and the Black Survival Advantage.Paediatric and perinatal epidemiology · 2025Article
- The Secondary Sex Ratio and Male Mortality at Pre-Reproductive Ages: A Test of Selection In Utero.American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council · 2025Article
- The pandemic preterm paradox: a test of competing explanations.American journal of epidemiology · 2024Article
- Vanishing twins, spared cohorts, and the birthweight of periviable infants born to Black and white women in the United States.Science advances · 2024Article
- Male twinning after the 2008 Obama election: A test of symbolic empowerment.Social science & medicine (1982) · 2024Article
- Selection in utero against male twins in the United States early in the COVID-19 pandemic.American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council · 2023Article
- Exposure to the early COVID-19 pandemic and early, moderate and overall preterm births in the United States: A conception cohort approach.Paediatric and perinatal epidemiology · 2023Article
- Article
- A novel indicator of selectionEvolution, medicine, and public health · 2023Article
- A preliminary analysis of the secondary sex ratio decline after the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan.American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 6 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
BACKGROUND AND
objectivesThe suspicion that a population stressor as profound as the COVID-19 pandemic would increase preterm birth among cohorts in gestation at its outset has not been supported by data collected in 2020. An evolutionary perspective on this circumstance suggests that natural selection METHODOLOGY: We apply Box-Jenkins methods to 50 pre-pandemic months to estimate counterfactuals for the nine birth cohorts in gestation in March 2020 when the first deaths attributable to SARS-CoV-2 infection occurred in Norway. We use Alwan and Roberts outlier detection methods to discover any sequence of outlying values in the odds of a live-born twin among male births in exposed birth cohorts.
resultsWe find a downward level shift of 27% in the monthly odds of a twin among male births beginning in May and persisting through the remainder of 2020. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: Consistent with evolutionary theory and selection LAY SUMMARY: Our finding of fewer than expected male twin births during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic provides more evidence that evolution continues to affect the characteristics and health of contemporary populations.
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