Post‐pandemic Inequalities: Evolutionary Anthropological Frameworks for Long‐Term Impacts of the 1918 Influenza Pandemic

ABSTRACT The 1918 influenza pandemic was a major mortality event that is well understood in its proximate heterogeneous impacts, but its long‐term impacts on inequality are less understood. Within anthropology, evolutionary frameworks such as the epidemiological transitions, biocultural anthropology, and evolutionary medicine can give meaning to ultimate explanations for pandemics' long‐term consequences. I seek to identify and shape the gap in the 1918 influenza pandemic literature around the analysis of post‐pandemic inequalities compared with pre‐pandemic and pandemic period inequalities. I discuss six papers that address consequences on the demography and epidemiology of surviving populations and 11 papers that engage with the fetal origins hypothesis to understand unequal long‐term impacts on cohorts exposed to stressful intrauterine environments during the pandemic. I contextualize existing knowledge of unequal impacts within evolutionary anthropological theory and argue that evolutionary anthropology is well suited to lead holistic research on ultimate determinants of long‐term pandemic consequences.