Data Analysis Project - Cemetery Demography

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ANTH17028GD Anthropology of Health

DATA ANALYSIS PROJECT: Cemetery Demography

Objective: In this assignment students will collect, analyze and interpret data. Students explore one approach that biological anthropologists use to understand the health and demography of a population. You will virtually visit a local cemetery and collect primary demographic data from gravestones about individuals who lived in the 20th century. You will then use this information to assess survivorship and mortality for this cemetery population. Finally, you will conduct research about the general health and disease status of the population during the period that the individuals in your cemetery sample lived in order to help you interpret and contextualize your findings. Value: 30% of your final grade Submission: Online through the SLATE ‘Assignments’ Due: Sunday, April 10 @ 11:59pm

I. ASSIGNMENT DETAILS (see below for detailed Instructions):

The previous major project asked you to explore how biological anthropologists can assess health and illness in the past through the study of human skeletal remains. The final project will focus on one approach that biological anthropologists use to understand health in the present, or near present. Biological anthropologists are interested in understanding population structure and the factors that contribute to the demographic structure of a population, like population size, sex, age, birth rates, longevity, and death rates. Demographic factors affect, and are affected by, the health and behaviour of a population. Thus, understanding the demographic characteristics of a population is central to our understanding of the health and life expectancy of a population. Local cemeteries are excellent places to explore human demography. Gravestones that mark the resting places of the dead contain important information that can be used to calculate death rates and draw survivorship and mortality curves. A survivorship curve is a graphical representation of the chance that an individual will survive from birth to a particular age. A mortality curve presents the mortality rate for different age groups in a population. Usually the survivorships and mortality rates of many individuals in a certain group are plotted together. This group is called a cohort. Often health researchers are interested in comparing survivorship and mortality between males and females, people from different locations, or groups of people born at different times to explore historical trends in demography. For this assignment you are being asked to collect demographic data from a cemetery population. Specifically, you will be collecting information about a sample of 100 individuals from the information recorded on their gravestones:

1. Digital Fieldwork – Visit a ‘virtual’ cemetery and record information from the digital

cemetery records. There are a number of websites that provide cemetery data, usually recorded by amateur genealogists and often accompanied by photos of the headstone. Select a cemetery website and search for a cemetery (or

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cemeteries) in the same region, and then record the information about the deceased individuals that has been collected from their gravestones. Some cemetery websites that you may visit are listed below (this list is not exhaustive): CanadaGenWeb’s Cemetery Project https://cemetery.canadagenweb.org/search.html Interment.net – Cemetery Records Online http://www.interment.net/can/index.htm

Canadian Headstones https://canadianheadstones.com/ Find a Grave https://www.findagrave.com/

You will then organize and analyze the cemetery data that you have collected. Specifically, you will:

• determine age at death (based on birthdate and death date) for each individual;

• organize the data into age classes based on age at death; • calculate survivorship and mortality rates for each age class; • create survivorship and mortality curves for your dataset. • explore possible differences in survivorship and mortality between males and

females, • explore possible differences in survivorship and mortality between groups of

people who died at different times (1900-1950 vs 1950-2000).

When analyzing your cemetery data I want you to consider the determinants of health and biocultural factors that influence age at death, and contribute to the potential differences between the sexes and cohorts. Also, think about the economic, political, social, technological, and medical changes and developments that took place the 20th century, the time period that you are exploring in this project. What are your predictions about how the demographics of the Ontario population (or the area where the cemetery you are surveying is located) have changed during this time period? Keep in mind that the individuals buried in the cemetery you choose to survey represent a sample of the total population that once lived. In order to study the demography of the entire population that once lived in Ontario we would need to survey every cemetery and assume that no one migrated from this area and was buried elsewhere. Of course, this is not possible or practical! Thus, for the purposes of this assignment we will assume that the cemetery you visit is representative of the people that lived in the area, but I want you to be aware of these sorts of biases in cemetery data.

Your task is to compare survivorship and mortality data for different cohorts: females and males dying between 1900-1950 and 1951-2000. Thus, you will be examining 4 cohorts:

1. females dying between 1900-1950

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2. males dying between 1900-1950 3. females dying between 1951-2000 4. males dying between 1951-2000

* NOTE: You may need to consult more than one virtual cemetery in order to obtain the required sample of 100 individuals who died between the years 1900 to 2000.

**Please ensure that your total sample includes adequate numbers of individuals from both time periods (1900-1950 and 1951-2000) to enable you to make meaningful comparisons of survivorship and mortality between the two time periods.

II. ASSIGNMENT INSTRUCTIONS:

STEP 1: REVIEW YOUR KNOWLEDGE

Prior to beginning this assignment, you need to review course materials and required readings on demography and cemetery samples. Identify a cemetery, or cemeteries, that include burials of individuals who died between 1900-2000. You should also start to think about other sources of demographic information that will be helpful to you as you conduct your demographic analysis of the cemetery data. Census and health records from the towns, cities and provinces where the cemetery you studied is located will provide valuable comparative data and interpretive information. Here are a few suggestions to get you started: Canadian Census, Library and Archives Canada https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/census/Pages/census.aspx The Human Mortality Database https://www.mortality.org/ The Internet Archive – Annual Reports of the Provincial Board of Health of Ontario https://archive.org/search.php?query=ontario%20provincial%20board%20of%20health STEP 2: COLLECT RAW CEMETERY DATA (Cemetery Project-Datasheet.xlsx à Sheet 1 ‘Raw Cemetery Data’) Record the information about deceased individuals listed in the virtual cemetery in the ‘Cemetery Project-Datasheet’ Excel file provided. You will only collect data on 100 individuals who DIED between 1900-2000. Limiting you to this 100-year period may mean that you have to visit different cemeteries (if they are smaller) to collect sufficient data. **Remember to record the name(s) AND url of the virtual cemetery in the Excel datasheet and in your written report.

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STEP 3: ORGANIZE YOUR DATA (Cemetery Project-Datasheet.xlsx à Sheet 1 ‘Raw Cemetery Data’)

1. Infer gender based on the names listed on the headstone and place this in the ‘Gender’ Colum in your spreadsheet. • If you are unable to tell from the name or other evidence whether an individual

was male or female, skip over that individual. • If only initials are used rather than given names, the individual was probably

male. • Occasionally infants or stillborn children were recorded as simply “baby”,

“infant” or some other designation from which gender cannot be determined. If this is the case, add up these individuals and put half in one gender and half in the other gender of the 0-4-age category.

2. Calculate the age a death for each individual. Subtract the date of death from the birth date to arrive at an age at death in years. Put this in the ‘Age at Death’ column in the Excel spreadsheet.

STEP 4: SUMMARIZE YOUR DATA (Cemetery Project-Datasheet.xlsx à Sheet 2 ‘Summary Data – Age Intervals’) Using the Excel spreadsheet provided summarize your raw data:

3. In Table 2 (Sheet 2), start by grouping the data from Table 1 (Sheet 1) into age classes based on the age of the individual at the time of death (0-4, 5-9, 10-9, 20- 29 etc.). Enter the total number of individuals who died in each age class for the two time periods (1900-1950 & 1951-2000).

• In cell B3 you will enter the total number of individuals who died between birth and 4 years (0-4) during the period between 1900-1950, in cell B4 you will enter the total number of people who died between 5-9 years during the period between 1900-1950, and so on and so forth down the column and for columns.

• Then, enter the total number of individuals who died in each age class for the period between 1951-2000 in column E.

• Make sure you double-check your math! The total # of deaths listed in Column B and E combined should equal the total number of gravestones that you recorded (100).

4. Next, you will separate the total number of individuals in each age class into females and males for each of the two time periods (1900-1950 & 1951-2000).

• In cell C3 you will enter the total number of females who died between birth and 4 years (0-4) during the period between 1900-1950, in cell C4 you will enter the total number of females who died between 5-9 years during the period between 1900-1950, and so on and so forth down the column.

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• You will do the same thing for males in column D. • Then, continue to enter the total number of females and males who died in

each age class for the period between 1951-2000 in columns F & G. STEP 5: ANALYZE YOUR DATA – Survivorship & Mortality (Cemetery Project-Datasheet.xlsx à Sheet 3 ‘Survivorship & Mortality Table’)

5. Copy the total number of dead females and males in each age class (dx) in Columns C, D, F & G from Sheet 2 ‘Summary Data – Age Intervals’. The number of deaths for an age interval is commonly abbreviated as ‘dx’. Then, paste this information in Columns B (females dying 1900-1950), F (males dying 1900-1950), J (females born 1951-2000), and N (males born 1951-2000). *Make sure that you carefully copy this information over to avoid errors.

6. Next, you will determine survivorship for your cemetery population by calculating ‘lx’ the number of females and males surviving from birth for each age class for the two time periods (Columns C, G, K and O).

• You will need to determine the total number of individuals (sample size) of each of your cohorts. For example, out of your total sample of 100 individuals, determine how many females died between 1900-1950. NOTE: your sample size for each cohort will be different unless you have equal numbers of individuals in each of the 4 cohorts.

• Enter the total sample size in the first age class row (0-4) for males and females in each time period. This number represents the number of people alive at the beginning of this age interval, so for the first age class, this would be equal to the total number of individuals in that cohort.

7. To calculate ‘lx (# surviving from birth)’, subtract the number of births in the first age class (0-4) from the total number in that cohort and place this value in the next age class row (5-9) under ‘lx’. Continue this for the remainder of the ‘lx’ column. If you have done the calculations correctly, your last entry at the bottom of this column for the 110+ age class should be zero (0). See Table 1 for an example of survivorship determined in this manner.

• Continue this approach for males and females in both time periods (Columns C, G, K and O).

8. Now, standardize the survivorship data (‘lx’) to per 1000 individuals (‘S 1000’). Use the following equation to make the necessary calculations:

S1000 = lx (#surviving from birth) x 1000 total # individuals in cohort

To confirm that you have done this calculation correctly, the top line of this column should be 1000 and the bottom line of this column should be zero (0).

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• Continue this approach for males and females in both time periods (Columns D, H, L and P).

9. Create a Survivorship Curve by plotting the S 1000 data on a graph with the x-axis representing the age class and the y-axis representing the proportion of individuals surviving (S 1000). Figure 1 provides and example of a survivorship curve.

• Create a Survivorship Curve for both genders and both time periods. In total you need to create ONE graph that displays 4 Survivorship Curves: 1) F 1900-1950, 2) M 1900-1950, 3) F 1951-2000 and 4) M 1951-2000.

10. Finally, calculate the mortality rate ‘qx’ for each age class. Use the following

equation to make the necessary calculations: qx = dx lx

• Continue this approach for males and females in both time periods (Columns E, I, M, and Q).

11. Create a Mortality Curve by plotting the mortality rate ‘qx’ data on a graph with the

x-axis representing the age class and the y-axis representing the proportion of individuals who have died (qx).

• Create a Mortality Curve for both genders and both time periods. In total you need to create ONE graph that displays 4 Mortality Curves: 1) F 1900- 1950, 2) M 1900-1950, 3) F 1951-2000 and 4) M 1951-2000.

Figure 1. Survivorship curve for males and females who died before and after 1950 (Chester Rural Cemetery, Chester, Delaware County, Pennsylvania, USA)

Source: Bruce W Grant, Department of Biology, Widener University, Chester, PA, http://www.science.widener.edu/~grant/esa/chester1.html

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Table 1. Survivorship table summarizing data collected from the 1930’s cohort from a cemetery in Newbery, South Carolina.

Source: Flood N. (1993). Cemetery demography. In Beiswenger J. M. (Ed.), Experiments to Teach Ecology Vol. 1, Ecological Society of America. Toronto, Canada.

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STEP 6: SITUATE YOUR FINDINGS IN THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT

After you have calculated survivorship and mortality and created the survivorship and mortality curves, think about what your results are telling you about similarities and differences between the 4 cohorts and across the age classes. To help you interpret these results you will need to do some research into the population structure and health in the area surrounding the cemetery that you surveyed and the time period in question.

Answer the following questions:

1. What are the trends for infant & child (ages 0-19) mortality and survivorship for males and for females in each time period? List and describe all factors that might account for any differences you see.

2. What are the trends for mortality and survivorship for reproductive age females and males (age 20-39) in each time period? List and describe all factors that might account for any differences.

3. What are the mortality and survivorship trends for males and females aged 60

and older in each time period? List all and describe all factors that might account for any differences you see.

4. How do the mortality and survivorship trends that you calculated for your

cemetery sample compare to documented mortality and health statistics from the area and time period under study? Support your answer with relevant sources.

5. Is your cemetery sample representative of the broader population? Consider the

distribution of ages at death, sex ratios, the location of the cemetery, the socio- economic status of the deceased in your response.

PROJECT GUIDELINES: Data collection: This is an individual project. The sharing of cemetery data is not permitted. Each student must visit a virtual cemetery and collect their own data. All data and answers submitted must belong only to the student submitting the assignment. Include a photograph of the cemetery you virtually visited (If provided in the cemetery website that you used) and include this along with the cemetery name in the written part of your assignment.

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III. SUBMISSION by Monday April 10 @ 11:59pm:

Your submission should include the following components: 1. Excel file containing:

a. Name and location of cemetery, and URL of cemetery website consulted b. Raw Cemetery data c. Survivorship and mortality calculations d. Survivorship and mortality curves

2. Written report of findings:

a. Name and location of cemetery surveyed b. Photograph of the cemetery c. Answers to the 5 questions posed above d. Bibliography of sources consulted

SUBMISSION FORMAT: Submit your Cemetery Data Analysis Assignment to the ‘Assignments à Cemetery Project’. Your submission should include 2 files: Excel file including data, analyses and curves, and Word/PDF file containing your written report. Please ensure that your report submitted as ONLY a Word (.docx) or PDF file format. I will be using a global rubric to grade your assignment below (pages 10-11 of this document). Please carefully review the rubric before you begin your assignment. Source Attribution: This assignment was modified from Flood N. (1993). Cemetery demography. In Beiswenger J. M. (Ed.), Experiments to Teach Ecology Vol. 1, Ecological Society of America. Toronto, Canada

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Cemetery Project Rubric (30%)

I. EXCEL DATA FILE

/1 Name, location and URL of virtual cemetery provided

/10 Raw Cemetery Data

- Data collected for 100 individuals - All individuals surveyed died between 1900-2000 - Sample adequately reflects both 1900-1950 and 1951-2000 time periods - Complete demographic information collected for each individual

/5 Summary Data – Age Intervals

- All individuals from raw datasheet accounted for - Raw data accurately summarized in table

/10 Survivorship and Mortality Table

- dx (total # dead) accurately copied from ‘Summary Data table’ - survivorship (lx & S1000) and mortality (qx) correctly calculated - survivorship and mortality table complete

/10 Survivorship and Mortality Curves

- data plotted on correct axes - curves appropriately labeled with axis labels, data labels, and legend - survivorship curve correctly and completely developed for all 4 cohorts; one graph

displaying all 4 cohorts - mortality curve correctly and completely developed for all 4 cohorts; one graph displaying

all 4 cohorts

II. WRITTEN REPORT

/10 Question 1. Mortality trends for infants and children (0-19)

Factors to account for differences discussed and explained.

/10 Question 2. Mortality trends for reproductive age adults (20-39)

Factors to account for differences discussed and explained.

/10 Question 3. Mortality trends for older adults (60+)

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Factors to account for differences discussed and explained.

/10 Question 4. Comparison of cemetery sample mortality and survivorship trends with documented mortality and health data

Discussion of similarities and differences between sample findings and published data.

/5 Question 5. Representativeness of your cemetery sample.

Consider the distribution of ages at death, sex ratios, the location of the cemetery, the socio-economic status of the deceased in your response.

/5 Citations and Bibliography

- Relevant historic, public health, and demographic sources & statistics cited - Proper use of APA bibliography and in-text citations to acknowledge sources, authorities,

work or ideas of others

/4 Organization, Clarity & Mechanics

- Report is well organized - Ideas are clearly presented - Name of cemetery and photograph of cemetery included - Minimal mechanical errors, assignment has been spellchecked and proofread; format

instructions are followed.

/90 MARKS

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