Moritz Oberndorfer
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moberndorfer.bsky.social
Moritz Oberndorfer
@moberndorfer.bsky.social
230 followers 380 following 19 posts
Social epidemiologist at
Helsinki Institute for Demography and Population Health
Max Planck-University of Helsinki Center for Social Inequalities in Population Health.
Affiliated with University of Glasgow and Stockholm University
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moberndorfer.bsky.social
Moritz Oberndorfer @moberndorfer.bsky.social · Jan 5
New paper finally published! Using data on 78 million births from 15 countries, we found that babies conceived during the COVID-19 pandemic have a different parental socioeconomic composition than expected had the pandemic not occurred. doi.org/10.1038/s414...
@natcomms.nature.com @helsinki.fi
Screenshot of the title and abstract: Parental socioeconomic composition of birth cohorts changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic offers opportunities to study effects of in-utero and early life exposure to environmental changes. However, inferences from such studies may be flawed if the pandemic has changed the socioeconomic composition of parents. Analysing over 77.9 million live births from 15 countries, we estimate changes in the socioeconomic composition of the cohort born between December 2020 and December 2021 using interrupted time series analysis. We find that, compared with their counterfactual compositions, the December 2020-December 2021 birth cohort has a higher proportion of babies born to socioeconomically advantaged parents in Austria, England, Finland, the Netherlands, Scotland, Spain, Wales, and the United States while we observe the opposite change for Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Mexico. These changes in cohort composition may cause between-cohort differences in life course outcomes that are influenced by parental socioeconomic circumstances even if early life exposure to the pandemic had no direct effect on this birth cohort. Figure 4 in the article. Figure caption: The black dots are percentage-point differences derived from the estimated mean counterfactual number of live births using interrupted time series Poisson regressions on the number of live births. 95% confidence intervals presented as horizontal lines around the point estimates are estimated using a three-step approach (see method section). Estimates are based on 596,276 live births for Austria; 19,995,228 for Brazil; 4,329,577 for Colombia; 413,903 for Denmark; 1,965,574 for Ecuador; 4,391,999 for England; 330,063 for Finland; 12,876,945 for Mexico; 1,167,024 for the Netherlands; 343,379 for Scotland; 134,874 for South Australia; 2,229,935 for Spain; 758,034 for Sweden; 22,306,054 for the United States; 216,797 for Wales. For Spain, only births with maternal age over 25 are included (see methods and suppl. material). Quintiles of equivalised household income and area deprivation are abbreviated by the letter Q. Q5 (highest income, lowest deprivation) denotes the fifth quintile, Q4 the fourth quintile, and so forth. For countries, where only parental educational attainment was available, “Post-Second./ Tert.” denotes post-secondary or tertiary educational attainment, “Upper Second.” denotes upper secondary educational attainment, “Lower Second.” denotes lower secondary educational attainment, and “Prim.” denotes primary educational attainment.
Reposted by Moritz Oberndorfer
equalise.bsky.social
Passionate about health equity? 📣 Join the #Equalise team and help make a difference with a fully funded PhD opportunity at the University of Glasgow @glasgow.ac.uk.
✍ Further information & how to apply: shorturl.at/yn3Sh
#PhD #PhDFunding
@celsenbroich.bsky.social @pmeierprof.bsky.social
FULLY FUNDED PhD - Actionable Evidence for More Health Equity Among the UK’s Future Workforces – A Synthetic Population and Simulation Approach at University of Glasgow on FindAPhD.com
PhD Project - FULLY FUNDED PhD - Actionable Evidence for More Health Equity Among the UK’s Future Workforces – A Synthetic Population and Simulation Approach at University of Glasgow, listed on FindAP...
shorturl.at
February 3, 2026 at 2:22 PM
Reposted by Moritz Oberndorfer
nataliecbennett.bsky.social
📢 New paper! We examine intersectional inequalities in neighbourhood air pollution concentration by area deprivation, ethnicity, education, rurality and age. We find evidence of patterns of inequality which depart from an additive framework link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Intersectional Inequalities in Neighbourhood Air Pollution Concentration in England: A Quantitative Analysis of Ecological Data Using Eco-Intersectional Multilevel (EIM) Modelling - Applied Spatial An...
Applied Spatial Analysis and Policy - Air pollution is detrimentally associated with many health outcomes, yet its impacts are not equally distributed. Research consistently finds inequalities by...
link.springer.com
January 30, 2026 at 1:39 PM
Reposted by Moritz Oberndorfer
joandamiens.bsky.social
🏠 Homeownership is often framed as protective for #wellbeing. But less is known about what happens when #homeownership becomes a burden…

Our new paper out in Social Science & Medicine shows that #mortgage affordability matters for #MentalHealth.

doi.org/10.1016/j.so...
Redirecting
doi.org
January 14, 2026 at 8:39 AM
Reposted by Moritz Oberndorfer
georgiatomova.bsky.social
If you are interested in the past, present, and future of Mendelian Randomisation, join us later this month for a Causal Inference Interest Group seminar on MR with none other than @mendelrandom.bsky.social

Zoom registration link: ucl.zoom.us/meeting/regi...
CIIG seminar with George Davey Smith on 26 January 2026 3pm GMT
January 5, 2026 at 7:00 PM
Reposted by Moritz Oberndorfer
mpidr.bsky.social
Happy New Year!
2026 already offers lots of opportunities to join or visit the MPIDR – last call!

These four MPIDR calls end in January.

Jobs:
www.demogr.mpg.de/en/career_61...

www.demogr.mpg.de/en/career_61...
Visit:
incubator.demogr.mpg.de
Conference:
www.demogr.mpg.de/en/news_even...
January 5, 2026 at 1:00 PM
moberndorfer.bsky.social
Again an open position at the MaxHel Center. This time at the Max (Rostock) part of MaxHel. deadline is the 11th of January!

www.demogr.mpg.de/en/career_61...
MPIDR - Postdoc Position(s) at the Max Planck – University of Helsinki Centre for Social Inequalities in Population Health
The Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR) in Rostock is one of the leading demographic research centers in the world. At the MPIDR, researchers from all over the world investigate demographic change, aging, fertility, biological demography and other issues at the forefront of population research.
www.demogr.mpg.de
January 5, 2026 at 2:34 PM
Reposted by Moritz Oberndorfer
hggaddy.bsky.social
And for all the 1918 flu cohort studies that compare 1919 to all surrounding cohorts, including 1920, the water is doubly muddied: fertility patterns make it look like any compositional changes persisted into 1920, causing bias in the opposite direction too (2/2)

doi.org/10.1080/0032...
Did the 1918 influenza pandemic cause a 1920 baby boom? Demographic evidence from neutral Europe
In 1919–20, the European countries that were neutral in the First World War saw a small baby bust followed by a small baby boom. The sparse literature on this topic attributes the 1919 bust to indi...
doi.org
January 5, 2026 at 1:16 PM
moberndorfer.bsky.social
New paper finally published! Using data on 78 million births from 15 countries, we found that babies conceived during the COVID-19 pandemic have a different parental socioeconomic composition than expected had the pandemic not occurred. doi.org/10.1038/s414...
@natcomms.nature.com @helsinki.fi
Screenshot of the title and abstract: Parental socioeconomic composition of birth cohorts changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic offers opportunities to study effects of in-utero and early life exposure to environmental changes. However, inferences from such studies may be flawed if the pandemic has changed the socioeconomic composition of parents. Analysing over 77.9 million live births from 15 countries, we estimate changes in the socioeconomic composition of the cohort born between December 2020 and December 2021 using interrupted time series analysis. We find that, compared with their counterfactual compositions, the December 2020-December 2021 birth cohort has a higher proportion of babies born to socioeconomically advantaged parents in Austria, England, Finland, the Netherlands, Scotland, Spain, Wales, and the United States while we observe the opposite change for Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Mexico. These changes in cohort composition may cause between-cohort differences in life course outcomes that are influenced by parental socioeconomic circumstances even if early life exposure to the pandemic had no direct effect on this birth cohort. Figure 4 in the article. Figure caption: The black dots are percentage-point differences derived from the estimated mean counterfactual number of live births using interrupted time series Poisson regressions on the number of live births. 95% confidence intervals presented as horizontal lines around the point estimates are estimated using a three-step approach (see method section). Estimates are based on 596,276 live births for Austria; 19,995,228 for Brazil; 4,329,577 for Colombia; 413,903 for Denmark; 1,965,574 for Ecuador; 4,391,999 for England; 330,063 for Finland; 12,876,945 for Mexico; 1,167,024 for the Netherlands; 343,379 for Scotland; 134,874 for South Australia; 2,229,935 for Spain; 758,034 for Sweden; 22,306,054 for the United States; 216,797 for Wales. For Spain, only births with maternal age over 25 are included (see methods and suppl. material). Quintiles of equivalised household income and area deprivation are abbreviated by the letter Q. Q5 (highest income, lowest deprivation) denotes the fifth quintile, Q4 the fourth quintile, and so forth. For countries, where only parental educational attainment was available, “Post-Second./ Tert.” denotes post-secondary or tertiary educational attainment, “Upper Second.” denotes upper secondary educational attainment, “Lower Second.” denotes lower secondary educational attainment, and “Prim.” denotes primary educational attainment.
January 5, 2026 at 12:28 PM
Reposted by Moritz Oberndorfer
genus.bsky.social
New study on divorce by @elinaeinio.bsky.social & Ponkilainen shows that women divorcing men face larger losses in homeownership & in retaining the marital home than both their former husbands and women divorcing women. @pophel.bsky.social

🔗 link.springer.com/article/10.1...

PS. Happy New Year! 🥂
January 2, 2026 at 8:46 AM
moberndorfer.bsky.social
„... there are no iron laws of economics keeping us from building a more humane world, …“
Banerjee & Duflo 2019, p. 255
December 25, 2025 at 12:06 PM
moberndorfer.bsky.social
News from the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health: doi.org/10.1136/jech...
Annie Herbert and I will co-chair the new Scientific Review Panel at JECH (read more about it in the editorial).
There are new methodological recommendations for authors of quant studies at jech.bmj.com/pages/authors
Reflecting on the year passed and the year ahead
For many of us, the start of a new calendar year is a time for reflection—of the things that we have to be grateful for and our goals and ambitions for the year ahead. In our first editorial of 2026, ...
doi.org
December 15, 2025 at 9:23 AM
Reposted by Moritz Oberndorfer
ucstonecenter.bsky.social
When kids are ready to learn, Stephen Raudenbush thinks we should be ready to teach. On the latest Inequality Podcast, Raudenbush joins @gtwodtke.bsky.social to discuss how teaching and school structure shape outcomes, and why organizational change might be needed.
Listen → bit.ly/4rwytHh
December 2, 2025 at 8:58 PM
Reposted by Moritz Oberndorfer
juhoharkonen.bsky.social
Today, @lintuslotta.bsky.social defended her doctoral thesis on educational inequalities at the @eui-eu.bsky.social Great defense, thanks to Lotta and the commiittee with @kbkarlson.bsky.social Bess Bukodi and @hermwerf.bsky.social
November 21, 2025 at 8:23 PM
Reposted by Moritz Oberndorfer
alastairleyland.bsky.social
New book: 𝗛𝗲𝗮𝗹𝘁𝗵 𝗦𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗺𝘀, 𝗛𝗲𝗮𝗹𝘁𝗵 𝗦𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗰𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗜𝗻𝗲𝗾𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗶𝗻 𝗣𝗼𝗽𝘂𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗛𝗲𝗮𝗹𝘁𝗵 (free to download from link.springer.com/book/10.1007...) 1/7
Health Systems, Health Services and Inequality in Population Health
This open access book shows the scientific and policy-added value of combining health systems, health services and population health research.
link.springer.com
October 2, 2025 at 11:47 AM
Reposted by Moritz Oberndorfer
gerrymccartney1.bsky.social
We are in the process of creating a new journal for our community, the Population Health Journal, and we are now inviting applications for editors:
journals.gla.ac.uk/phj/announce....
Login | Population Health Journal
journals.gla.ac.uk
October 24, 2025 at 11:18 AM
Reposted by Moritz Oberndorfer
invest-flagship.bsky.social
Do register-based research? 🔎 #FIRE Fellowships offer 1–2 month visits to Finland for postdocs & senior researchers.

Apply now 👉
fire-infra.com/en/fire-visi...

@utu.fi @stat.fi @aalto.fi #TampereUniversity @helsinki.fi @uniuef.bsky.social @uniofjyvaskyla.bsky.social @vatt-tutkimus.bsky.social
FIRE Visiting Fellow Programme - FIRE
FIRE fellowships are 1–2 months visits to the Finnish Infrastructure for Register-Based Research (FIRE) to collaborate with our researchers.
fire-infra.com
September 26, 2025 at 7:12 AM
moberndorfer.bsky.social
Family-based designs like family fixed effects models are becoming more popular and feasible through family linkages in individual-level population wide data. Can they achieve less confounded effect estimates than other designs?
Don't miss this talk by one of our experts on the topic.
pophel.bsky.social Helsinki Institute for Demography and Population Health @pophel.bsky.social · Oct 10
PopHel Talks: Next Monday, 13th October, Joonas Pitkänen will be presenting at PopHel Talks on family-based designs in childhood adversity research.

13th October, 02:00-02:45 PM (UTC+2)
Please register for a Zoom link:
elomake.helsinki.fi/lomakkeet/13...
October 13, 2025 at 9:23 AM
moberndorfer.bsky.social
Great research and great fun in our international team awaits you!
If you have any informal questions about the team, feel free shoot me a message.
October 13, 2025 at 9:19 AM
Reposted by Moritz Oberndorfer
drjenndowd.bsky.social
Looks like a great opportunity for pop health researchers... #demography #episky
jobs.helsinki.fi/job/Helsinki...
Two Postdoctoral Researchers on Health Inequalities
Two Postdoctoral Researchers on Health Inequalities
jobs.helsinki.fi
October 11, 2025 at 7:18 PM
moberndorfer.bsky.social
Excited to see @sammalmaetaes.bsky.social defend his masterpiece of a phd thesis today @helsinki.fi !
Go Juha!
September 26, 2025 at 8:16 AM
Reposted by Moritz Oberndorfer
helsinki.fi
Nuorempana alkoholia laillisesti ostaneet henkilöt ovat sairastuneet ja kuolleet kroonisiin alkoholiperäisiin sairauksiin useammin kuin henkilöt, jotka saivat laillisesti ostaa alkoholia 21–vuotiaana.
Nuoruudessa koettu alkoholipolitiikka yhteydessä myöhempään terveyteen | Helsingin yliopisto
Vapaammalle alkoholipolitiikalle nuoruudessaan altistuneet henkilöt olivat keski-ikään mennessä sairastuneet ja kuolleet alkoholiperäisiin sairauksiin useammin kuin tiukemmalle alkoholipolitiikalle nu...
www.helsinki.fi
September 19, 2025 at 11:01 AM
Reposted by Moritz Oberndorfer
pophel.bsky.social
New study in European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry by Lotta Volotinen, Hanna Remes, Pekka Martikainen and Niina Metsä-Simola found that low parental education is more strongly associated with increased ADHD diagnosis only in families without identified history of ADHD.

Read more: rdcu.be/eG9eY
September 19, 2025 at 11:03 AM
Reposted by Moritz Oberndorfer
pophel.bsky.social
Our symposium from #SLLS2025 @sllshome.bsky.social consisted of research from Shubh Sharma @eugeniopaglino.bsky.social @olivia-mcevoy.bsky.social mcevoy.bsky.social @moberndorfer.bsky.social orfer.bsky.social Lauren Bishop and registry data expertise from Hanna Remes.
Thanks to all who attended!
September 17, 2025 at 7:17 AM
moberndorfer.bsky.social
"help reshape" never gets old
June 16, 2025 at 1:51 PM
Reposted by Moritz Oberndorfer
alastairleyland.bsky.social
New paper (£0): Socio-economic inequalities in uptake and timing of childhood vaccination: Taking a life course approach in an administrative cohort in Scotland www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
May 21, 2025 at 11:42 AM