Research Project to Study Industrial Revolution’s Health Impact

New study to explore health changes during Industrial Revolution

A £1.2 million international research project led by the University of Bradford will investigate how the Industrial Revolution affected human health in Britain and the United States. The three-year study, starting in early 2026, aims to combine bioarchaeological data from human skeletal remains with historical records to better understand mortality, chronic illness, and living conditions during the 18th and 19th centuries.

Project overview

Titled Dead and Buried: Investigating changes in health during the Industrial Revolution using documentary records and human skeletal remains, the project is a collaboration between the University of Bradford and the State University of New York (SUNY) at Plattsburgh. It will analyse data from over 20,000 excavated burials in England alongside historical death records from 1837 to 1890.

The research will focus on several key areas, including:

• The health risks associated with industrialisation and urbanisation
• The influence of social status and environmental factors on health
• The impact of epidemic diseases such as cholera
• Patterns of tuberculosis (TB), despite challenges in detecting it from skeletal remains

Methodology and collaboration

The team will use Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to map spatial relationships between disease and death across rural and urban areas, comparing trends between the UK and the US. The project is led by Dr Jo Buckberry from Bradford’s School of Archaeological and Forensic Sciences, with Dr Gillian Crane-Kramer and Dr Justin Lowry from SUNY Plattsburgh’s Department of Anthropology.

Dr Crane-Kramer noted that the study will explore similarities and differences between England and the US, considering the approximately 70-year delay in the Industrial Revolution’s onset in America. The research also aims to understand whether the US approached industrial health issues differently or learned from British experiences.

Context and significance

The Industrial Revolution, spanning roughly 1750 to 1900, marked a shift from home-based production to factory manufacturing, driven by new technologies such as the steam engine. This transformation had wide-ranging social and environmental effects, including on public health.

The project will contribute to updating policies related to the analysis of human remains from this period, working with Historic England. It also aligns with the United Nations’ sustainable development goals by emphasising public health and infrastructure.

Funding and future activities

Dead and Buried is co-funded by UK Research and Innovation’s Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the US National Science Foundation’s Social, Behavioural and Economic Sciences Directorate (SBE).

Alongside research, the project will include outreach activities such as workshops for schoolchildren at the Thackray Museum of Medicine in Leeds. It builds on a previous pilot study funded by the Royal Society in 2018.

Further information about the project and its findings will be made available as the research progresses.