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Reference Resources & Guides
To ground your understanding of prior pandemics, these works will provide an overview to the disease, its spread, and the response. These works are particularly useful for providing you with key events in pandemic timelines as well as highlight the institutional actors and innovations used to contain the pandemic.
Plagues in World History by ISBN: 1282922688Publication Date: 2011-01-01Plagues in World History provides a concise, comparative world history of catastrophic infectious diseases, including plague, smallpox, tuberculosis, cholera, influenza, and AIDS. Geographically, these diseases have spread across the entire globe; temporally, they stretch from the sixth century to the present.
Encyclopedia of Pestilence, Pandemics, and Plagues by ISBN: 9780313341014Publication Date: 2008-09-30From the Athenian flu pandemic to the Black Death to AIDS, this extensive two-volume set offers a sociocultural, historical, and medical look at infectious diseases and their place in human history from Neolithic times to the present. Primary source sidebars, over 70 illustrations, a glossary, and an extensive print and nonprint bibliography round out the work.
Influenza by ISBN: 9780822977858Publication Date: 2012-04-01In 1976, the outbreak of a new strain of swine flu at the Fort Dix, New Jersey, army base prompted an unprecedented inoculation campaign. Some forty-two million Americans were vaccinated as the National Influenza Immunization Program hastened to prevent a pandemic, while the World Health Organization (WHO) took a wait-and-see approach.
America's Forgotten Pandemic by ISBN: 9780521541756Publication Date: 2003-07-21In this vivid narrative, Alfred W. Crosby recounts the course of the pandemic during the panic-stricken months of 1918 and 1919, measures its impact on American society, and probes the curious loss of national memory of this cataclysmic event. T
Influenza and Public Health by ISBN: 1844078965Publication Date: 2010-08-25One tool for pandemic planning is analysis of responses to past pandemics that provide insight into productive ways forward. This book investigates past influenza pandemics in light of today's, so as to afford critical insights into possible transmission patterns, experiences, mistakes, and interventions. It explores several pandemics over the past century, from the infamous 1918 Spanish Influenza, the avian flu epidemic of 2003, and the novel H1N1 pandemic of 2009, to lesser-known outbreaks such as the 1889-90 influenza pandemic and the Hong Kong Flu of 1968. Contributors to the volume examine cases from a wide range of disciplines, including history, sociology, epidemiology, virology, geography, and public health, identifying patterns that cut across pandemics in order to guide contemporary responses to infectious outbreaks.
Contagion by Call Number: Online AccessISBN: 9780300189308Publication Date: 2013-09-14In today's global world, commodities and germs are circulating with unprecedented speed. Beginning with the plagues that ravaged Eurasia in the fourteenth century, Harrison charts both the passage of disease and the desperate measures to prevent it. He examines the emergence of public health in the Western world, its subsequent development elsewhere, and a recurring pattern of misappropriation of quarantines, embargoes, and other sanitary measures for political or economic gain-even for use as weapons of war. In concluding chapters the author exposes the weaknesses of today's public health regulations-a set of rules that not only disrupt the global economy but also fail to protect the public from the afflictions of trade-borne disease.
- Pandemics Past and Present - HeinOnlineCompiling together publications on the various ways COVID-19 has impacted every aspect of life, from testing issues, to stimulus payments, to the quest for a vaccine, this database organizes content on COVID-19 into the following areas of focus: Economic Impact, Global Impact, Health Care Impact, and Societal Impact, with an expanding selection of scholarly articles and links to take your learning beyond HeinOnline. Importantly, this collection also features a subcollection dedicated to Past Pandemics, allowing researchers access to ways the federal government has responded to medical disasters of the past and how these previous pandemics inform today’s response.
Primary Sources
Finding primary source material about past pandemics can be challenging. In addition to the sources below, you should look to reference books and secondary scholarship for clues about what primary source materials you should be looking for: Pay attention to the organizations, institutions, and agencies that authors cite when they discuss a particular pandemic.
General Sources
The list of general sources derive mostly from international health organizations (such as the WHO). Many of which are searchable archives of publications from these organizations, and they provide snapshots of develop pandemics -- they're spread, their mortality and morbidity information, and the ways in which institutions and nations were responding.
- Weekly Epidemiological Record (WHO)The Weekly Epidemiological Record (WER) serves as an essential instrument for the rapid and accurate dissemination of epidemiological information on cases and outbreaks of diseases under the International Health Regulations and on other communicable diseases of public health importance, including emerging or re-emerging infections.
- International Health Regulations (1969)Original set of regulations that empowered WHO to surveil public health.
- International Health Regulations (2005 Rev.)IHR, revised in response to SARS (2003).
- Contagion: Historical Views of Diseases and Epidemics [Harvard University]Historical scholarship about disease and epidemics. Over 500,000 pages of plates, engravings, maps, charts, and broadsides from the 15th - 20th centuries.
- Public Health ReportsIncludes publications dating back to 1887, reporting on latest incidence of contagious diseases. Early publications include information on quarantine vessels.
- Mortality and Morbidity Weekly Report (CDC)CDC's primary vehicle for scientific publication of timely, reliable, authoritative, accurate, objective, and useful public health information and recommendations. 1952-present.
- Ethical and Legal Considerations in Mitigating Pandemic Disease (2007)From the Institute of Medicine. Scholars address ethical and legal considerations of the responses of past pandemics.
- Digital Collection from the National Institute of HealthDigitized primary sources of medical literature and publication from countries around the world (mostly US). Includes curated exhibits.
- Reviewing the History of Pandemic InfluenzaReview article discussing the following: "During this time, globalization processes, alongside advances in medicine and epidemiology, have altered the way these pandemics are experienced. Drawing on international case studies, this paper provides a review of the impact of past influenza pandemics, while examining the evolution of our understanding of, and response to, these viruses."
- Wellcome Collection digital imagesFind thousands of Creative Commons licensed images from historical Wellcome Collection (London) library materials and museum objects to contemporary digital photographs.
- "The scientific background of the International Sanitary Conferences, 1851-1938."Howard-Jones, N., & World Health Organization. (1975). The scientific background of the International Sanitary Conferences, 1851-1938.
Black Death (1334-1350)
WHO Historical Collection: Includes early works on epidemiology.
Plague & Public Health in Renaissance Europe
Modern Plague (1860-1903)
Bubonic Plague: The First Pandemic: Online exhibit created by the Science Museum in London. Contains information about Black Death as well as Modern Plague (about halfway down the page).
Russian Flu (1889-1890)
"Transmissibility and Geographic Spread of the 1889 Influenza Pandemic"
CDC Stacks: Grippe -- "Grippe" is an older name for influenza. Narrow to the years around 1889 for relevant Public Health Reports.
Spanish Flu (1918-1919)
Influenza Archive -- Digital Encyclopedia created by the University of Michigan Center for the History of Medicine
Asian Flu (1956-1958)
CDC Stacks: H2N2: Narrow to relevant years to find CDC reports on Asian Flu outbreak.
Symposium on the Asian Influenza Epidemic, 1957: Article from The Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine. Discusses transmission of Asian Flu in infected countries.
Hong Kong Flu (1968-1969)
50 Years of Influenza: Article reviewing "the emergence, progression, clinical course, etiology, epidemiology, and treatment of the 1968 pandemic."
Government Surveillance Report on 1968 Hong Kong Flu: (Note: link is for general google search; the report should be the third from the top in pdf form) Report from The National Communicable Disease Center. Contains information on the outbreaks from State Health Departments.
Ebola Outbreak (1976)
HIV/AIDS (1981-present)
SARS (2003)
Estimating the Global Economic Costs of SARS: Workshop presentation from Learning from SARS: Preparing for the Next Disease Outbreak at the Institute of Medicine.
Revised US Surveillance Case Definition for SARS: CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) from 2003. Also includes new case definition.
SARS 2004 Media and Alerts Archive: CDC archive containing press releases, MMWR updates, and WHO updates from 2003-2004.
Swine Flu (2009)
NPI Implementation During the 2009 Swine Flu Pandemic
Ebola (2014)
Cost of the Ebola Epidemic: CDC information on Ebola outbreak in 2014.
Film & Video
You can search the three databases below for videos about prior pandemics. You can also search Catalyst, selecting the Audio/Video tab. These are the sample search results for SARS.
- Kanopy This link opens in a new window
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A streaming video platform of current and classic documentaries and feature films. - Films on Demand This link opens in a new window
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(Searches through citations, subject indexing, and transcripts)
A large collection of streaming videos covering all academic disciplines. - Academic Video Online This link opens in a new window
- This link opens in a new window
A comprehensive streaming video collection including documentaries, newsreels, theater, musical performances, and much more from across the disciplines.
Individual titles:
- The Black Death: World's Most Devastating Plague24-part series from The Great Courses.
- How to Survive a PlagueDocumentary about the early years of the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
- Introduction to Infectious DiseasesFrom The Great Courses. Includes episodes on epidemics, how they spread and how they are contained.
