SOCIAL STATISTICS SEMINAR SERIES
| Dates: | 9 December 2025 |
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| Times: | 14:00 - 15:30 |
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| What is it: | Seminar |
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| Organiser: | School of Social Sciences |
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| Who is it for: | University staff, External researchers, Adults, Alumni, Current University students |
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| Speaker: | José Manuel Aburto |
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Please join us for the Social Statistics Seminar, we have coffee and cake. We are very pleased to welcome:
José Manuel Aburto
Brass Blacker Associate Professor in Demography, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Title: Post-Pandemic Mortality and Parental Loss: Racial/Ethnic Inequalities in a Changing Health Landscape
Abstract: Here is the abstract: Life expectancy, a central indicator of population health, was severely disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, prompting renewed attention to cause-specific mortality patterns and their indirect effects on population well-being. In this talk, I will present up-to-date mortality trends to assess whether life expectancy has fully recovered to pre-pandemic levels, whether it aligns with trajectories expected in the absence of the pandemic, and how cause-of-death profiles have shifted in recent years. I will also examine how these mortality changes intersect with social inequalities by analysing parental loss in the USA from 2000–2023, a period marked by life-expectancy stagnation and sharp mortality shocks. Using vital statistics and focusing on drug- and alcohol-related deaths, suicides, homicides, and cardiovascular diseases, we estimate annual parental loss among children under 18 and analyse disparities by race/ethnicity with a newly developed indicator. Our findings reveal rising levels of orphanhood—heightened during the pandemic—with substantial racial/ethnic disparities with drug overdoses emerging as the leading contributor among White and Hispanic families, cardiovascular mortality remaining predominant among Black families, and homicides disproportionately affecting Black children. These results highlight the evolving landscape of mortality and its unequal consequences for families and children in the post-pandemic era.
Speaker
José Manuel Aburto
Role: Brass Blacker Associate Professor in Demography
Organisation: London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Travel and Contact Information
Find event
Williamson 4.08
Williamson Building
Manchester
