Online Seminar Talk

Human Fertility After Disaster: A Systematic Literature Review

D. Susie Lee
Online Seminar Talk, February 01, 2022

D. Susie Lee from the Laboratory of Population Health at MPIDR introduces a systematic review on how disaster affects counts of live births and pregnancy terminations.

Abstract

Background: With the growing risk of disasters over the last few decades, and large socioeconomic inequality in vulnerability to the risk, the consequence of disaster events in current and future population dynamics has become a key question for researchers, policymakers, and the public alike. As yet, to the best of our knowledge, no systematic review has been performed to assess the current state of our understanding in how disaster affects counts of live births and pregnancy terminations (stillbirths, miscarriages, and abortions). The lack of an overarching assessment is in part because differences in study contexts and methods hinder direct assessment and comparison of the disaster impacts on fertility.

Present study: In light of this background, the researchers began a systematic review of literature on the relationship between disasters and fertility. Systematic review uses explicit and reproducible methods to search and select literature for review, and to appraise and synthesize findings. The researchers seek to better understand 1) how associations between disaster and fertility vary across populations, with heterogeneous impact of disaster depending on its type and context in which a disaster occurs and 2) the overall risks of bias in the current body of research and how future studies can improve methodological quality for studying the disaster-fertility relationship.

Present lab talk: D. Susie Lee will present work in progress, including how the data collection (i.e., selection of studies for review) was done, which predefined criteria she and her colleagues are employing to synthesize evidence and appraise methodological quality such as risks in bias, and what our preliminary findings are.

Register to Take Part

You would like to attend the Online Seminar Talk? You are very welcome. Please register by writing an e-mail to office-myrskyla@demogr.mpg.de.

Online Seminar Talk, February, 1st from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. (Rostock time)