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Dr José Manuel Aburto

Associate Professor in Demography - Brass Blacker

United Kingdom

José Manuel joined LSHTM in 2022 as Brass Blacker Associate Professor of Demography. He leads the Mortality and Inequalities Research group within PSG. Before joining LSHTM he held the Newton International and Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellowships at University of Oxford and was Assistant Professor at University of Southern Denmark. José Manuel received his MA in Demography at El Colegio de México, training at the European Doctoral School of Demography at Sapienza University of Rome, and PhD in Demography at the University of Southern Denmark and Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in 2020.

Affiliations

Department of Population Health
Faculty of Epidemiology and Population Health

Teaching

José Manuel convenes the Mathematical Demography module at the European Doctoral School of Demography where he teaches Mathematics for Demographers and Decomposition Techniques since 2018. At LSHTM, he contributes teaching to the Population Studies, Demographic Methods and Population Dynamics and Projections papers.

Research

José Manuel's research specializes in formal demography and the measurement of inequalities in longevity, contributing influential work that has been recognized internationally. Theoretically and methodologically, his work follows two main strands. First, his work develops and advances formal demographic techniques to measure inequalities in the length of life and uses this perspective to generate new ways of analysing population health. Second, through these and other methodological tools, including those from statistics, data science, and computer science, his work examines the structural and social determinants of population health inequalities. For example, his work so far has examined how structural shocks like violence, and more recently the COVID-19 pandemic, affect population health inequalities around the globe.

Research Area
Demography
Population health
Criminal violence
Disease and Health Conditions
COVID-19
Region
Latin America & Caribbean (all income levels)
European Union
Middle East & North Africa (all income levels)

Selected Publications

Changes in Fertility Trends and Women's Fertility Desires in the Wake of the Homicide Surge in Mexico.
Floridi, G; Gargiulo, M; ABURTO, JM;
2026
Population research and policy review
Temporary Shock or Lasting Scar? Life Expectancy Trajectories Since COVID-19
Dowd, JB; Schöley, J; Polizzi, A; ABURTO, JM; Jaadla, H; Lei, H; Kashyap, R;
2026
openRxiv
Evolution of Life Expectancy and Lifespan Variation in Sub-Saharan Africa
Mejía-Guevara, I; Gazeley, U; Nabukalu, D; ABURTO, JM;
2025
medRxiv
The impact of violence and COVID-19 on Mexico's life-expectancy losses and recent bounce-back, 2015-22.
Zazueta-Borboa, J-D; Vázquez-Castillo, P; GARGIULO, M; ABURTO, JM;
2025
International Journal of Epidemiology
Indirect effects of the COVID-19 pandemic: A cause-of-death analysis of life expectancy changes in 24 countries, 2015 to 2022.
Polizzi, A; Zhang, L; Timonin, S; Gupta, A; Dowd, JB; LEON, DA; ABURTO, JM;
2024
PNAS nexus
The lifetime risk of maternal near miss morbidity in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America: a cross-country systematic analysis.
GAZELEY, U; Polizzi, A; PRIETO, JR; ABURTO, JM; RENIERS, G; FILIPPI, V;
2024
The Lancet Global health
The reciprocal relation between rising longevity and temperature-related mortality risk in older people, Spain 1980-2018.
Lloyd, SJ; Striessnig, E; ABURTO, JM; Achebak, H; HAJAT, S; Muttarak, R; Quijal-Zamorano, M; Vielma, C; Ballester, J;
2024
Environment international
Mexico’s surge of violence and COVID-19 drive life expectancy losses 2015–2021
Zazueta-Borboa, J-D; Vázquez-Castillo, P; GARGIULO, M; ABURTO, JM;
2024
medRxiv
How lifespan and life years lost equate to unity
Baudisch, A; ABURTO, JM;
2024
Demographic Research
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