Agostino Cristofalo

PHD!

The decline of ‘Deaths of Despair’ in Italy: unveiling this phenomenon in a new context - Population Health Metrics Background The term “Deaths of Despair” (DoD) refers to mortality due to alcohol consumption, drug use, and suicides. While extensively studied in the United States, where these deaths have markedly i...

The last chapter of my PhD thesis is out, just a few days before my defense 🎓

Read the new paper in Population Health Metrics with Andrea Nigri, Sergi Trias-Llimós (@sergitl.bsky.social), and Elisabetta Barbi on Deaths of Despair in Italy:

📄 link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Housing tenure trajectories and health in later life across Europe Previous research has shown that standard patterns of work and family trajectories over the life course are associated with better health in later lif…

Life course folks, you may be interested in our brand new article (w @etrappolini.bsky.social) on housing tenure trajectories and health in later life across Europe 🏡 open access on ALCR www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti....

Gaza: Study Reveals Unprecedented Losses of Life & Life Expectancy
Researchers from MPIDR & the Centre for Demographic Studies (CED) investigated the impact of the conflict in Gaza on mortality. Life expectancy 2024 fell to nearly half the level expected without the war. www.demogr.mpg.de/go/GazaLE

Quitting smoking, even late in life, linked to slower cognitive decline Quitting smoking in middle age or later is linked to slower age-related cognitive decline over the long term, according to a new study by UCL researchers.

Quitting smoking in middle age or later is linked to slower cognitive decline over the long term, according to a new study led by Dr Mikaela Bloomberg @mapbloom.bsky.social that suggests, for cognitive health, "it is never too late to quit" @ucliehc.bsky.social @uclpophealthsci.bsky.social

Well deserved, Signe👏🏻😊

Group Pic of the EDSD cohort 2025. A very diverse group of young people standing at a waterside surrounded by green bushes. There is a litte ferry on the water in the background and you can see the other side of the river Warnow.

✨20th anniversary of the European Doctoral School of Demography✨On this day 20 years ago(Sept 1, 2005) the EDSD opened its doors @mpidr.bsky.social for the 1st time. Today, we welcome the 21st cohort. We wish everyone a great year of study, research & networking! www.demogr.mpg.de/en/news_even...

Daje Cosmo, congrats!!!

Age-Period Modeling of Mortality Gaps: The Cases of Cancer and Circulatory Diseases - Giacomo Lanfiuti Baldi, Andrea Nigri, Han Lin Shang, 2025 Understanding and modeling mortality patterns, especially differences in mortality rates between populations, is vital for demographic analysis and public healt...

New publication!
We introduce a Skellam-based age-period model to capture and forecast mortality gaps between populations — an alternative to modeling rates separately.

Tested on causes of deaths, but extensible beyond.

Check it out 👉 doi.org/10.1177/0282...

🆕New preprint of our study on widowhood!
"Evolution of widowhood lifespan and its gender and educational inequalities in Finland over three decades" osf.io/preprints/so... in @socarxiv.bsky.social
Joint work with K. Korhonen, @alysonvanraalte.bsky.social , @timriffe1.bsky.social and P. Martikainen

@giacomolanfiuti.bsky.social have a look!

Image advertises Popfest 2025 6-8 July 2025 | University of Southampton | Open to all postgrad students Registration: £65 (inc. lunch & refreshments) | Accommodation: £50 pp pn Bursaries available! Call for papers for those based in UK/Europe & registration extended! Conference themes: Ageing Populations and Intergenerational Relations Computational Demography and Data Science Critical Demography, Life Course Events and Human Capital Ethnicity, Migration and Migrant Populations Global Health, Wellbeing, Mortality Historical Demography Spatial Issues, Environment, and Sustainability Unions, Family, Fertility Posters Registration deadline 15 June Supported by BSPS, CPC-CG, University of Southampton, SCDTP, EAPS, NCRM and Population Geography Research Group

‼️ Extended deadlines for #PopFest2025

UK/Europe based? We need your papers and posters! Send a short abstract to popfest2025@gmail.com by 5pm BST on 13 June - bursaries are available too.

Registration to attend now open until 15 June 🎉 @bspsuk.bsky.social

Full info: www.cpc.ac.uk/activities/p...

Here’s a fresh read for your Monday brain🧠:

A new article by Mendola and Busetta on refugees’ health in Germany - now out in GENUS and available #openaccess.

👉 genus.springeropen.com/articles/10....

#PopDays2025 in Cagliari really felt like home and we are already looking forward to seeing you all in Trento 2027!🍀

Nowcasting at #Popdays2025 🌞🌞

Opening new PhD positions in Statistical Sciences! The PhD programme includes a specific curriculum for Demography.
3-years programme starting next fall.

Deadline for applications: June 19th 2025 🚨
For more infos, get in touch and visit the website:

A huge shout-out to my brilliant co-authors: researchers from DEP Lazio and my PhD supervisor @etrappolini.bsky.social 👏👏

Thus, we speculated that the higher risk of hospitalization for low-educated dementia patients mostly depended on poorer health at disease onset. Regarding emergency visits, other factors might play a role: health literacy of caregiving network, ability to manage the condition autonomously.

...and we found that, when we adjust for patients' *pre-existing* health conditions, educ. disparities in hospitalizations are sensibly reduced, while those in emergency visits remained larger and significant.

Result: educational disparities persisted, but to a lesser extent. Conditional on developing dementia, low-educated are at a higher risk of hospitalizations and emergency visits. We also attempted to understand the reason why...

Second original step: we explored educational disparities in healthcare utilization subsequent to dementia onset. We followed up on incident cases until the occurence of three outcomes: hospitalizations (all-cause and potentially preventable), and emergency department visits.

Using the rich Lazio Region Longitudinal Study (census-linked health records), we first explored educational disparities in dementia incidence and shed light on their age-patterning. Result: we found strong disparities across all ages and massive disparities in early onset (ages 50-64)⚠️

Educational disparities in dementia incidence and healthcare utilization: evidence from a cohort study in Italy While educational disparities in dementia incidence are well-known, whether and to what extent they persist beyond dementia onset is less explored. In…

My (very first) article is now available on SSM🎉
We investigated the extent to which the well-known educational disparities in dementia incidence persisted in subsequent healthcare utilization after dementia onset. Don't just go to read it, run!🏃

ChatGPT's attempt to draw a "diagram to illustrate what a Lexis parallelogram is"

A student yesterday: "Not even ChatGPT understands Lexis diagrams..." I guess the spatial logic of triangles, squares, and parallelograms trips it up? I just asked it to explain and draw a Lexis parallelogram, and yeah, it didn't go great. Maybe a tip for testing demographic reasoning these days!

A nice group of young Sapienza demographers are in Washington for PAA2025! Here is a calendar with all the sessions where you can visit us:

The call for applications for the European Doctoral School of Demography (EDSD) 2025-2026 is open!

This international doctoral program aims to provide students with a high-level education in demography.

Deadline to apply: March 25th, 2025 at 12 PM (noon).
More information: eaps.nl/edsd/how-to-...

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank again and @eleonoramussino for guiding me through this journey and the committee for their invaluable suggestions.

Finally joining Bluesky, and finishing my PhD feels like the perfect moment!✨
Heartfelt thanks to @etrappolini.bsky.social and @mussino.eu for their guidance, and to the committee (@manuelastranges.bsky.social, @lisakkraus.bsky.social, Oliviero Casacchia) for their amazing suggestions😊

CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) has provided real-time data and analysis about disease outbreaks and emerging health threats without a break every week since 1960.

Until today.

My research stay at the Stockholm University Demographic Unit (SUDA) officially started! I am very happy to be here 💙🤍

Apply, apply, apply!