Skip to main content
Go to the home page of the European Commission (opens in new window)
English en
CORDIS - EU research results
CORDIS

Long-Run Inequalities in Health and Survival Between Families and Across Generations

Project description

The intergenerational social inequalities of health

Long-term trends in health inequality are poorly documented. The ERC-funded Relative Health project aims to investigate the enduring connection between family lineage, and mortality and health from the 1800s to today. By examining historical and contemporary data across various nations, the project will explore how health advantages or disadvantages are passed down from ancestors to descendants. Traditional metrics often focus on individual wealth and resources, but this initiative will adopt a new perspective to map long-term patterns of intergenerational inequality and identify specific mechanisms and contexts that may explain why some families enjoy longer lives while others face persistent health risks.

Objective

Worldwide life expectancy has increased strongly over the past decades, but social inequalities in health and mortality are large and increasing. In contrast to trends in socioeconomic inequality and social mobility, long-term developments in inequality in health and mortality have been poorly documented. “Relative Health” aims to quantify the level of inequality in health and mortality from a family perspective 1800-today. Characteristics that affect health and mortality accumulate in families, and thus the level of inequality in health and mortality can be quantified by addressing similarities within families in health and mortality (same-generation relatives) and intergenerational persistence of health and survival (ancestors and descendants).

The project has four main objectives:
1. Develop new ways to measure inequality in health and mortality using a revolutionary new perspective, inequality between families and intergenerational persistence;
2. Using these, describe for the first time long-term trends in health and mortality inequality;
3. Identify mechanisms that shape these inequalities between families and across generations;
4. Identify the role of contextual characteristics in shaping inequalities between families, including the level of social mobility and social inequality.

State-of-the-art population reconstructions cover up to 9 generations of relatives (grandparents, parents, children) in Sweden, Netherlands, and US 1800-today and contain lifespan and health information. The project lays the groundwork to generalize these estimates of family health inequality to many contexts with less abundant data sources, using survey data. These contain indicators of health and mortality for focal individuals, their siblings and children for a range of low- and middle-income countries covering 4 decades (DHS, 1984-2018). Overall, the project seeks to transform our understanding of social inequality in health and mortality across time and space.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.

You need to log in or register to use this function

Keywords

Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)

Programme(s)

Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.

Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants

See all projects funded under this funding scheme

Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) ERC-2024-STG

See all projects funded under this call

Host institution

LUNDS UNIVERSITET
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 1 264 809,00
Address
Paradisgatan 5c
22100 Lund
Sweden

See on map

Region
Södra Sverige Sydsverige Skåne län
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Links
Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 1 264 809,00

Beneficiaries (2)

My booklet 0 0