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Updated: May 27, 2026

Generating a Reproducible Model of Mid-Gestational Maternal Immune Activation using Poly(I:C) to Study Susceptibility and Resilience in Offspring
Published on: August 17, 2022
Long-run effects of fetal influenza exposure: evidence from Switzerland
Sven Neelsen1, Thomas Stratmann
1ifo Institute for Economic Research, International Institutional Comparisons, Poschingerstrasse 5, 81679 Munich, Bavaria, Germany. neelsen@ifo.de
Abstract:
In this paper we estimate long-run effects of fetal exposure to the 1918/19 influenza pandemic for a European country. Using data from the 1970 Swiss census, we find that the male 1919 cohort that had a strongly increased likelihood of fetal exposure to the pandemic performs significantly worse in terms of educational attainment and has a lower chance of marriage than the surrounding cohorts. Further, we find similar results when we in addition use regional differences in influenza severity to test for the impact of influenza on later-life outcomes. A set of robustness tests confirm our findings.
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