The Diffusion of the Influenza Pandemic of 1918 in Hartford, Connecticut

Abstract

This study uses geographic information systems (GIS) to measure the incidence and track the spread of the influenza pandemic of 1918 in Hartford, Connecticut. The data for the study are based on the death certificates of individuals who lived in Hartford and died from the disease, digitized maps of Hartford for the period circa 1918, and two supplemental random samples of the 1920 U.S. census schedules. The findings suggest that, instead of viewing the epidemic as a solitary event, one can better understand it as a set of somewhat discrete events or “mini-epidemics” occurring within the confines of one city. These mini-epidemics affected various subgroups in the population differently in terms of the timing of the onset, the duration, and the lethality of the disease. The major point of differentiation of these subgroups was ethnicity, which overlapped with geography.