Communal bereavement and the incidence of very low birthweight in Sweden

Prime minister Olof Palme's murder in 1986 and the sinking of the ferry Estonia in 1994 were stressful events for many Swedes, but did that stress affect health? We use an interrupted time-series design to measure the association between these events and the incidence of very low, birthweight. Effects of male unemployment, size of the birth cohort, and temperature were controlled in our analysis of data for the period 1973-1995. The incidence of very low birthweight rose significantly in the months following the Palme murder and the Estonia catastrophe. Events that trigger communal bereavement at the scale we study may seem rare but they do occur (e.g., destruction of the World Trade Center and attack on the Pentagon). Events with less visibility, moreover, may induce communal bereavement in smaller populations defined by geography or organizational participation.