February
16
/ 2026
New research from the University of Portsmouth reveals that during the Great Plague of 1665, Londoners relied on published death statistics to make critical daily decisions about where to go, whom to meet, and whether to flee the city. The study demonstrates that weekly mortality reports, known as the Bills of Mortality, served as an early form of public health data that shaped both individual behavior and government policy in unprecedented ways. Drawing extensively on the famous diary of Samuel Pepys, the research shows how these numerical accounts became powerful tools for managing both populations and personal risk during one of history's deadliest epidemics. The findings challenge the common assumption that data-driven public health is a modern invention. Instead, they
