This ESRC-funded project is designed to shed new light on the history of sickness and morbidity in Britain since the mid-nineteenth century.
The main part of the project uses information obtained from the sickness insurance records of the Hampshire and General Friendly Society to examine the sickness claims made by approximately 6,000 individuals over the period from 1868 to 1950. These data are supplemented by qualitative information obtained from the records of other major British friendly societies, including the Ancient Order of Forester and the Independent Order of Oddfellows. The project aims to shed new light on such topics as changes in the relationship between individual sickness experience and age over the last 150 years; the ‘cultural inflation of morbidity'; the changing patterns of non-fatal illness among British workingmen; and the relationship between morbidity and mortality.
Grant holders: Bernard Harris, Andrew Hinde (Social Statistics) and Martin Gorsky (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine).
Awarding body: ESRC