Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University, Einsteinweg 2, 2333 CC Leiden, the Netherlands.
Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University, Einsteinweg 2, 2333 CC Leiden, the Netherlands.
Int J Paleopathol. 2023 Sep;42:34-45. doi: 10.1016/j.ijpp.2023.07.003. Epub 2023 Aug 3.
To investigate the prevalence of respiratory disease in several populations from the Netherlands across different time periods and socioeconomic conditions.
We analyzed 695 adult individuals from six different Dutch contexts of urban and rural settlements dating to different time periods (i.e., early-medieval, late-medieval, post-medieval).
For each individual, the presence/absence of chronic maxillary sinusitis, otitis media, and inflammatory periosteal reaction on ribs was recorded macroscopically according to accepted methods.
Statistically significant associations were found in the presence of sinusitis diachronically (early-medieval to late-medieval period, and early-medieval to post-medieval period) both in rural and urban environments. Differences in prevalence rates of otitis media were found statistically significant when comparing rural to urban environments in the early-medieval and late-medieval periods.
Our results suggest that factors such as increased contact between towns and countryside, higher population densities, and intensification of agricultural production impacted the respiratory health of past populations both in rural and urban settings.
Our study provides new insights into the impact of environmental changes and urbanization on respiratory disease prevalence, shedding light on the relationship between health and changing social and environmental contexts.
Research limitations included the complex etiology of respiratory diseases, and the impact of uncontrollable factors such as hidden heterogeneity, selective mortality, and rural-to-urban migration.
Further research in different contexts is advised in order to continue exploring urbanization and its impact on human health across both time and space.
调查荷兰不同时期和社会经济条件下多个人群的呼吸疾病患病率。
我们分析了来自六个不同荷兰城乡背景的 695 名成年个体，这些个体来自不同的时期（即中世纪早期、中世纪晚期、后中世纪）。
对每个个体，根据公认的方法，从宏观上记录慢性上颌窦炎、中耳炎和肋骨炎症性骨膜反应的存在/缺失情况。
在城乡环境中，都发现了鼻窦炎症的历时性（从中世纪早期到中世纪晚期，以及从中世纪早期到后中世纪）存在统计学显著关联。在中世纪早期和晚期，农村到城市环境的中耳炎患病率存在统计学显著差异。
我们的结果表明，城镇与农村之间接触增加、人口密度增加以及农业生产集约化等因素，都对农村和城市环境中过去人群的呼吸健康产生了影响。
本研究为环境变化和城市化对呼吸疾病患病率的影响提供了新的见解，揭示了健康与不断变化的社会和环境背景之间的关系。
研究的局限性包括呼吸疾病的复杂病因，以及不可控因素（如隐藏的异质性、选择性死亡率和农村到城市的迁移）的影响。
建议在不同背景下进行进一步研究，以继续探索时间和空间上的城市化及其对人类健康的影响。
