Prentice Post
Spring 2020 Volume 11 Issue 1
Prentice Institute Leadership Message
Inside this issue:
World War. Canada’s death toll was 55,000,
Trevor Harrison, PhD,
Interim Director Prentice Institute Associate Professor Sociology Department University of Lethbridge
mostly young adults, nearly as many deaths
Leadership Message
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as from the war.
New Director Search
2
Seed Grant Opportunities
3
New Research Grants
4
Governance Structure
5
Student Researcher Funding
6
As in these past pandemics, the current one is resulting in profound economic and social changes, many of which are likely to continue long after the current crisis has abated.
As I write, Alberta, Canada – the world –
But while the pandemic is a medical event,
are in the grips of a pandemic caused by a
it is also much more than that. Our most
coronavirus, Covid-19. The pandemic has
recent pandemics have all involved diseases
already infected over one million people,
that jumped from animals to humans
with over 53,000 deaths. While the rate of
(“zoonotic diseases”) - HIV, Ebola, Zika,
transmission appears slowing in some coun- Hendra, SARS, MERS and bird flu. These tries, it is speeding up in others, notably the
diseases didn’t just “jump,” however. They
United States, where the most recent figures moved as the result of human decisions and show 210,000 cases and over 4,500 deaths.
actions the understanding of which requires
Top American health officials estimate the
the efforts of a whole array of disciplines,
number of cases for that country could hit
including biology, economics, environmen-
150 million with perhaps 100,000 to
tal studies, and sociology – in short, the
200,000 deaths.
kind of interdisciplinary research that lies at the heart of the Prentice Institute’s mandate
How bad might the pandemic become?
and mission. I have no doubt too that all of
Thomas Homer-Dixon contends, based on
you are already considering the broader
competing lethality rates of 0.5 to 3.0
questions and implications arising from this
percent, that the number of deaths world-
pandemic.
wide could be between 12 million and 150 million.
In closing, I want to acknowledge everything that all of you personally are going
This is not, of course, the world’s first pan-
through, and to also thank in particular the
demic. The most in famous in recent
Prentice Institute’s staff who have continued
memory of course is the Spanish Flu epi-
to do their work diligently, faithfully, and
demic of 1918-20 that took the lives of be-
with purpose. I implore all of you to please
tween 50 and 100 million people worldwide take care and stay safe, so that we may all – more than the recently concluded First
get together in person when this is over.
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Mission Statement The Prentice Institute excels at researching the changing human population and its potential impacts on social and economic issues, and communicating its findings widely. The Prentice Institute and its research collaborators seek to understand longterm changes in the human and economic environments, within a historical context, with particular attention to the role human actions play in influencing those outcomes. We conduct and integrate research on the dynamics of Canadian and global demography and their impacts on economic wellbeing through migration, culture, trade and natural resource availability.
We communicate widely the output of our work and that of others to stimulate further research and to enable individuals, governments, and corporations to make better-informed decisions. We educate students and future researchers.
Prentice Post is the bi-annual newsletter of the Prentice Institute for Global Population and Economy at the University of Lethbridge.