Adjusted RICH funding creates opportunities for small research projects

Due to the Covid pandemic RICH funding that was reserved for travel and conferences became available for small research projects. The Radboud Group will start three small projects this autumn.

Angélique Janssens and Tim Riswick will get assistance for the “Lifting the burden of disease. The modernisation of health in the Netherlands: Amsterdam 1854-1940” project. Due to the closed archives data collection was put on hold. This small project will provide the extra hands to collect additional data, but more importantly the funding will be used to reach out to the participants of the Radboud Group Citizen Science for the History of Health community. Many of our volunteers who are in the risk group, will get extra attention and assistance in the valuable work they conduct for us.

Dries Lyna and Luc Bulten will get assistance for the Thombo database. The small project is the ideal opportunity to optimize the Excel-worksheets and entry module. The data will be cleaned and ordered, furthermore by entering the main Thombo of the town of Chilaw (1766) the rural selection bias of the current database will be reduced.

Jan Kok en Björn Quanjer will start a project on the effect of iodine deficiency on height in the Netherlands in the first half of the twentieth century. The project will digitize the reports of the national ‘strumacommissie’ to explore the spatial variance of iodine deficiency in relation to conscription heights. The topic might also appeal to modern health scientists as iodine (mostly present in fish and added to salt) is disappearing from our diet.

Want to know more? Please contact

• RICH, rich@let.ru.nl