3 ms·

I'm not an epidemiologist, so file this under "baseless speculation by an armchair non-expert", but influenza is an Old World disease - is it possible that Firs

by defen 4y ago

I'm not an epidemiologist, so file this under "baseless speculation by an armchair non-expert", but influenza is an Old World disease - is it possible that First Nations people are more vulnerable to it? Ten seconds of Googling provided this link https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22032099/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22032099/

munk-a 4y ago
In this case I'd strongly suggest following up with an actual epidemiologist (which I also am not) but my assumption (also pretty baseless) is that when doing comparative population studies they do try and account for that affect.
AlotOfReading 4y ago
There's a lot of literature trying to disentangle genetic and cultural background in epidemiology, especially with regard to indigenous peoples in the Americas. However, the general idea that the immune systems of indigenous Americans are somehow uniquely susceptible to disease was a popular idea in the 80s that is now regarded as unsupported by evidence. Most of the prominent advocates (like black) have walked back on it.
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