News
NWO Veni Grant awarded to Tim Riswick
In July 2024, Dr Tim Riswick, Posthumus fellow and member of the Educational Committee of the N.W. Posthumus Institute, was granted a Veni Grant by the Dutch Research Council (NWO) for his project ‘Unravelling Health Inequalities: The Historical Roots of Inequality in Death and Disease in West-European Port Cities, 1850-1950’.
Social inequality in health is a continuous and urgent societal challenge. This inequality, influencing our everyday-life, has deep historical roots. Understanding the causes of this historic inequality is currently hindered by the use of inadequate sources, a merely national focus and an almost exclusive emphasis on death rates.
In his project, Tim Riswick challenges the issues mentioned above by using a comparative approach, investigating three main West-European port cities: Amsterdam, Copenhagen, and Glasgow, over the period of 1850-1950. For all three cities digitised certificates on death causes and patient registers are available, enabling research on both mortality and morbidity, using unique data at an individual level. Also, all three cities had a high burden due to disease, a high level of population circulation, severe economic changes and progression in the field of public health in the periode concerned, making these cities representative examples of the developments throughout Western Europe at the time. The comparison between these three cities will allow research on the question whether and if so, how and why specific determinants contributed to health inequalities, related to the causes of death.
The N.W. Posthumus Institute congratulates Tim with this award!
